Leges et Ivra P. R. Restitvit. A New Aureus of Octavian and the Settlement of 28-27 BC_J.W. Rich and J.H. C. Williams (The Numismatic Chronicle, Vol. 159, 1999).pdf

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Leges et Ivra P. R. Restitvit: A New Aureus of Octavian and the Settlement of 28-27 BCAuthor(s): J. W. RICH and J. H. C. WILLIAMSSource: The Numismatic Chronicle (1966-), Vol. 159 (1999), pp. 169-213Published by: Royal Numismatic SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42668496 .

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Leges et Ivra P. R. Restitvit :

A New Aureus of Octavian and the

Settlement of 28-27 bc

J. W. RICH AND J. H. C. WILLIAMS1

[plates 20-21]

Aureus : 7-95 g Obv. : IMP- CAESAR - DIVI -F-COS-V1

Laureate head of Octavian r.

Rev . : LEGES • ET • IVRA PR- RESTITVIT • Octavian, togate, seated left on sella curulis , holding out scroll in right hand; scrinium on ground to left.

Such in brief is the numismatic description of an important new acquisition by the Department of Coins & Medals in the British Museum (Pl. 20, l).2 It is the first specimen of a previously unknown issue of aurei in the name of Octavian, dated to his sixth consulship, 28 bc, a year of significant political change with regard to his public position and image. This coin is of outstanding significance as a new piece of evidence for this crucial period in the establishment of the Augustan principáte. It is the aim of this paper to illustrate the importance of this new coin, by discussing the noteworthy features of its legends and iconography, and to show how it affects the historical interpretation of the political changes that occurred after the battle of Actium in 31 and in particular the settlement of 28-27 bc.

1 Hereafter, unless otherwise indicated, BMC = H. Mattingly, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum , vol. 1, Augustus to Vitellius (reprinted with revisions, London, 1976), and RIC = C. H. V. Sutherland, Roman Imperial Coinage , vol. 1, From 31 bc to ad 69 (revised edn., London, 1984). For both volumes reference is to Augustus nos. unless otherwise stated. We are very grateful to Andrew Burnett, Michael Crawford, Robert Gurval, Andrew Meadows and Fergus Millar, and also to participants in seminars at the Koninklijk Penningkabinet, Leiden, and the University of Nottingham for their comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 2 British Museum accession number CM 1995.4-1.1, purchased with the generous assistance of Prof. M. H. Crawford. The coin was first published in Numismatica Ars Classica auction catalogue 5 (25 February 1992), lot 400. Colour enlargements of its two sides appear on the jacket of M. H. Crawford (ed.), Roman Statutes (2 vols, London, 1996). For a brief discussion of its historical implications see W. K. Lacey, Augustus and the Principáte (London, 1996), p. 85. The coin is not included in D. Sear, The History and Coinage of the Roman Imperators: 49-27 bc( London, 1998).



170 J. W. RICH AND J. H. C. WILLIAMS

AUTHENTICITY AND CONTEXT

The appearance of a unique and hitherto unknown coin bearing so dramatically on one of the most important events in Roman history may seem almost too good to be true. The authenticity of the coin has indeed been challenged by R. Martini, but his arguments have little cogency.3 There are in fact no valid reasons for doubting the coin's genuineness. Its very uniqueness tells in its favour. Forgers typically draw on and redeploy features of the known coinage, but the reverse of the aureus is unlike any other known Augustan coin type. Yet, as this discussion will show, the coin fits well into the contemporary numismatic and political context and helps us to make better sense of the information we already possessed. Not even a forger of genius could have achieved such a feat.

Examination of the composition and fabric of the coin corroborates its genuineness. Its weight is comparable to that of other aurei of the years around 28 bc, whose weight is in the approximate range 7*75-8-00 g.4 Metal analysis by the British Museum's Department of Scientific Research using X- ray fluorescence spectroscopy has shown that the gold content is extremely high and closely similar to that of other analysed Augustan aurei.5 There is a convincing degree of wear on the obverse around the temples of the bust and on the most prominent locks of hair, while the general appearance of both sides shows that the coin has seen circulation. Microscopic analysis of the surface revealed no signs of modern manufacture or alteration.

A range of gold and silver issues was struck for Octavian/ Augustus in the period from the late 30s to 27 bc (Table 1). We must now seek to determine the place of the new aureus in this pattern of coin production.

3 R. Martini, 'Note in calce ad una falsa emissione aurea di Octavianus recentemente apparsa sul mercato antiquario', Annotazioni Numismatische 5 (1992), pp. 94-5, and 'Nuova nota a conferma della falsifità dell' "aureo" di Octavianus', Annotazioni Numismatische 21 (1996), pp. 465-7. The aureus' genuineness is defended against Martini by H.-M. von Kaenel, 'Die antike Numismatik und ihr Material', Schweizer Münzblätter 44 (1994), pp. 1-11, at p. 2. Martini's principal objection is that the legend makes no mention of the senate. However, there is no need for a reference to the senate in a legend commemorating the restoration of the Roman people's laws and rights. Similarly, Octavian appears as LIBERTAT IS P(OPVLI) R(OMANI) VINDEX with no mention of the senate on cistophori which, as will be argued below, were minted together with the new aureus ( RIC 476). See further pp. 173ff., 180ff. Visual examinations of the coin have been conducted by Roger Bland, Andrew Burnett, Michael Crawford and John Kent, who have all confirmed its authenticity. 4 M. von Bahrfeldt, Die römische Goldmünzenprägung während der Republik und unter Augustus (Halle, 1923), pp. 107-16, 184-5; C. H. V. Sutherland, 'Octavian's gold and silver coinage from c.32 to 27 bc', QT 5 (1976), pp. 129-57, at pp. 134, 140. 5 The gold content of the new aureus was found to be 99-8 %, while that of both BMC 657 (= RIC 277) and BMC 679 (= RIC 522), which were analysed for comparison, was found to be 99-6 %. The analyses were made on unprepared samples without removal of patina or corrosion. The results are thus only approximate, but nevertheless indicative. We are grateful to Mr. M. Cowell for this information.



A NEW AUREUS OF OCTAVIAN 171

Table 1

The gold and silver coinage of Octavian/ Augustus, c. 34-27 bc

RIC Date Aug. Denom. Obv. Rev.

250-63 Au/D No legend; head of Octavian CAESAR (1.), DIVI- F (r.), or c. 34-28 (bare) or bust of a goddess CAESAR -DIVI- F in exergue; (263 : Victory on prow) various types

264-74 Au/D No legend; head of Octavian IMP CAESAR; various types c. 34-28 (bare) or head/bust of a god (274: IMP on obv.) or goddess (264: Victory on prow)

543 D No legend; Octavian head, IMP above, CAE - SAR Before 27 bare around, DIVI • F below shield

276 Quin CAESAR IMP- VII; Octavian ASIA RECEPTA; Victory on 30-25 head, bare cista mystica between two

snakes 476 Cist IMP- CAESAR- DIVI -F- COS PAX; Pax holding caduceus 28

• VI • LIBERTATIS • P • R • and standing on parazon- VINDEX; Octavian, head ium; snake emerging from laur. cista mystica; all in

laurel-wreath 275 D CAESAR COS • VI ; Octavian AEGVPTO CAPTA ; crocodile 28

head, bare, lituus behind 545 D CAESAR- DI VIF COS- VI; AEGVPTO CAPTA; crocodile 28

Octavian head, bare, capricorn below

544 Au CAESAR- DIVI- F COS- VII; AEGVPT CAPTA; crocodile 27 Augustus head, bare, capricorn below

277 Au CAESAR. COS- VII AVGVSTVS above eagle, 27 CI VIBVS-SERV ATEIS; holding oak- wreath flanked Augustus head, bare by S-C, two laurel branches

behind

The two large series of aurei and denarii with the reverse legends CAESAR DIVI F ( RIC 250-63) and IMP CAESAR ( RIC 264-74) share some dies and so must come from the same mint, but both its location and the date of the issues have been disputed. Kraft maintained that all these coins were issued after Octavian's triumph in 29.6 However, most scholars now hold that they began to be produced before his victories over Antony and Cleopatra: it seems improbable that he would have issued no new coinage to fund this war, and some of the types may be interpreted as commemorating his earlier victory over Sextus Pompeius.7 If this is right, these series cannot have been

6 K.Kraft, Zur Münzprägung des Augustus (Wiesbaden, 1969), pp. 5-25 (= Gesammelte Aufsätze zur antiken Geldgeschichte und Numismatik , vol. 1 (Darmstadt, 1978), pp. 292-311).

See especially M. H. Crawford, J RS 64 (1974), pp. 246-7; P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, 1988), pp. 40-2, 53-7; D. Mannsperger, 'Die Münzprägung




produced in the East, as earlier writers supposed, and must be the work of an Italian mint, perhaps Rome itself. On these series Octavian is celebrated above all as the victorious military leader. Some of the reverse types allude to specific honours and achievements, but these are not elucidated in the standardized legends. Octavian keeps exalted company here: many of the coins in both series show Octavian on one side and a divinity on the other, and several coins are paired, with a coin showing the head or bust of a divinity on the obverse and a full-length figure of Octavian on the reverse matched by another with a head of Octavian on the obverse and the god full- length on the reverse. On several of these coins, particularly in the IMP CAESAR series, Octavian is assimilated to a divinity, with the god's image being given his features. Thus the bust on the obverse of RIC 271-2 is probably Apollo with the features of Octavian, and the herm on the obverse of RIC 270 (PL 20, 2) and reverse of RIC 269 shows him as Jupiter, with accompanying thunderbolt.8

The scarce denarii whose reverses have the legend IMP CAESAR DIVI F around a shield (RIC 543) may also date to this period, but could be earlier. Octavian's name is there given in its full pre-27 form, as on his coinage of 37-36 (RRC 537-8, 540).

Various aurei, denarii and quinarii are dated by their obverse legends either by the seventh imperatorial salutation of Octavian/ Augustus or to his sixth or seventh consulship ( RIC 275-7, 544-5).9 These issues too are of uncertain origin. Sutherland ascribed some to the same Italian mint as the CAESAR DIVI F and IMP CAESAR series ( RIC 275-7) and declared the mint of the remainder as uncertain (RIC 544-5). Others have ascribed them all to

des Augustus', in G. Binder (ed.), Saeculum Augustum , vol. 3 (Darmstadt, 1991), pp. 348-99, at pp. 363-75 ; R. A. Gurval, Actium and Augustus (Ann Arbor, 1995), pp. 47-65 ; Sear, Imperators (n. 2), pp. 240-1. Kraft's dating is defended by W. Trillmich, in Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik (Berlin, 1988), pp. 507, 510-1 1. There is no good reason to date the IMP CAESAR series later than the CAESAR DIVI F series, with Sutherland, 'Octavian's gold and silver coinage', and RIC , pp. 30-1. Dio's statement (52.41.3-4) that Octavian assumed the praenomen 'Imperator' in 29 is probably an error. Even if Sutherland were correct that Octavian's right to the praenomen was formally confirmed in that year, this would have no bearing on the chronology of the coinage, since Octavian had used it on his coinage since 38 (RRC 534, 537-8, 540). 8 On divine assimilation in these series see, besides the works cited in the preceding notes, R. Albert, Das Bild des Augustus auf den frühen Reichsprägungen (Speyer, 1981), with A. M. Burnett's review, Gnomon 55 (1983), pp. 563-5; J. Pollini, 'Man or god: divine assimilation and imitation in the late Republic and early Empire', in K. Raaflaub and M. Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire: Interpretations of Augustus and his Principáte (Berkeley, Los Angeles. Oxford, 1990), do. 334-63, at oo. 349-50. 9 There is also a unique four-aureus piece with obverse legend IMP CAESAR DIVI F AVGVST COS VII, and reverse legend AEGVPTO CAPTA (RIC 546), but its authenticity is widely doubted: see G. Gorini, 'I medaglioni d'oro di Augusto', AHN 15 (1968), pp. 39-61, especially pp. 54ff. For Octavian's seventh imperatorial salutation, conferred (despite Dio 51.25.2) for the capture of Alexandria on 1 August 30, see L. Schumacher, ' Die imperatorischen Akklamationen der Triumvira und die Auspicia des Augustus', Historia 34 (1985), pp. 191-222, at pp. 209-12; J. W. Rich, 'Augustus and the spolia opima' Chiron 26 (1996), pp. 85-127, at pp. 95-7.




the East.10 These coins commemorate specific achievements of Octavian/ Augustus, not only by their reverse types but also by explicit legends. Most celebrate the conquest of Egypt or recovery of Asia through the defeat of Antony and Cleopatra. However, one issue of aurei, dated to his seventh consulship in 27 bc ( RIC 277, Pl. 20, 3), is an immediate celebration of the honours conferred in January of that year following the political settlement of 28-27. Its reverse features the name Augustus, the laurel branches which were to flank the door of his house and the oak crown which was to be placed above it, accompanied by the letters SC, indicating that these were honours conferred by a senātus consultum. The words CIVIBUS SERV ATEIS included in the obverse legend allude to the explicit reason for the grant of the crown: the oak or civic crown was a military distinction granted to a soldier who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen, and both literary references and the frequent depictions of the crown in the later coinage show that the crown over Augustus' door was accompanied by an inscription bearing the words OB CIVIS SERVATOS ('for saving citizens').11

The character of the types and legends of these dated issues and especially the absence of the overt association of Octavian with divinities, which was so marked on the CAESAR DIVI F and IMP CAESAR series, may reflect the new mood of the post-war years 29-27, in which, as will be discussed below, Octavian/Augustus was seeking to make it appear that traditional republican ways were being restored and to give his own supremacy a republican guise. However, divine associations were not wholly absent, merely more subtle : the name Augustus had a more than human aura, and on RIC 277 the oak wreath is carried by Jupiter's eagle.12

In addition to the Roman denominations of the period, a large issue of cistophoric tetradrachms was struck for Octavian at a mint in the province of Asia, perhaps at Ephesus (PL 20, 4). 13 Some traditional features of cistophori, as first established under the Pergamene kings and maintained under Rome, still occur on this issue, notably the cista mystica with its snake. However, in other respects the types and legends are Roman in character. Octavian's name and titulature is given in extended formulation: the full pre-

10 E.g. Mattingly, BMC, pp. 105-7; J.-B. Giard, Catalogue des monnaies de V empire romain , vol. 1, Auguste (Paris, 1976), pp. 41-4. The various issues with the crocodile reverse and the legend AEGVPT(O) CAPTA surely come from the same mint, pace Sutherland. 11 Ovid, Trist. 3.1.47-8; Val. Max. 2.8.7; RIC 29-30, 40, 75-9, 323, 419, 549, etc. In general on the honours of 27 see RG 34.2 (cited below, p. 190-1); Zanker, Power of Images , pp. 89-100; J. W. Rich, Cassius Dio , The Augustan Settlement {Roman History 53-55.9) (Warminster, 1990), pp. 148-9, with further references. On the civic crown as a reward for Augustus and other saviours see A. Alföldi, Der Vater des Vaterlandes im römischen Denken (Darmstadt, 1971), pp. 46-79; S. Weinstock, Divus Julius (Oxford, 1971), pp. 163-74. 12 For the supra-human associations of the name Augustus see Ovid, Fasti 1.607-12; Suet. Aug. 7.2; Floras 4.12.66; Dio 53.16.8. 13 RIC 476 = RPC 2203 = C. H. V. Sutherland, The Cistophori of Augustus (London, 1970), Group I (nos. 1-72; pls. 1-2, 15-17).




27 form of the name, IMP CAESAR DIVI F, is followed by COS VI, dating the coins to 28. These coins celebrate the ending of the war against Antony and Cleopatra both by the personification of Peace on the reverse and by the remarkable phrase LIBERTAT1S P(OPVLI) R(OMANI) VINDEX ('champion of the liberty of the Roman people'), appended to the obverse legend, which will be discussed further below. Although the heads of divinities with Octavian's features in the IMP CAESAR series (RIC 270-2; PL 00, 2) wear laurel wreaths, these cistophori are the first coins to portray Octavian in his own person wearing such a wreath. Octavian had been granted the right to wear a laurel wreath some years earlier, but its appearance here for the first time on the coinage suggests a specific reference to the triple triumph celebrated by Octavian on 13-15 August of the previous year.14

Both the wreathed head and other features of the PAX cistophori echo and make a riposte to two large issues of cistophori struck for Antony in c. 39. One of these shows Antony on the obversë and Octavia on the reverse (RPC 2201 ; PL 20, 5), while the other has a double portrait of Antony and Octavia on the obverse (RPC 2202 ; Pl. 20, 6); on both the traditional Dionysiac features of cistophori have been elaborated in honour of the 'new Dionysus'. Octavian's head on the obverse of the PAX cistophori is wholly surrounded by an extended legend, as Antony's had been, but, whereas most of the Antonian legend was taken up by his designate consulships, their place on Octavian's issue is taken by the phrase celebrating his defeat of the Antonian threat. The long-robed Dionysus on the reverse of the double-portrait Antonian cistophori is replaced by Octavian's long-robed Pax. The Dionysiac ivy-wreath which had been a traditional cistophoric feature was used as an encircling border on the obverse of Antony's single-portrait cistophori. This is echoed by the encircling wreath on the reverse of the PAX cistophori, but that wreath is composed not of ivy but of laurel, emblematic both of Octavian's victory and of Apollo, associated with the victory through his Actium temple. On both his cistophori Antony wears an ivy-wreath with tie- ribbons. Octavian too wears such a wreath, not of ivy but of laurel.15

The new aureus has one point of striking similarity with a denarius in the IMP CAESAR series : on the reverse of RIC 270 (Pl. 20, 2) Octavian is shown togate and seated on a curule chair in a pose very like that on the reverse of our aureus. However, its closest affinity by far is neither with this denarius

14 For the date of the triumph see Inscr. Ital. vol. 13.1, pp. 345, 570 (= EJ, p. 50). Octavian had been decreed the same rights as a triumphator to wear the laurel crown in 40 and the right to wear it at all times in 36 (Dio 48.16.1, 49.15.1). 15 See Sutherland, Cistophori , pp. 88-9, 112; D. Mannsperger, 'Apollon gegen Dionysos. Numismatische Beiträge zu Oktavians Rolle als Vindex Libertatis', Gymnasium 80 (1973), pp. 381-404. For a sceptical discussion of Octavian/ Augustus' relationship with Apollo see Gurval, Actium and Augustus (n. 7).




nor with the AEGVPTO CAPTA denarii which share its dating to 28 (RIC 275, 545), but with the PAX cistophori of the same year (PL 20, 4).

16

On the aureus as on the PAX cistophori Octavian's name and titulature appears as IMP CAESAR DIVI F COS VI, a formulation which occurs nowhere else in the coinage of the period (see Table 1). Another feature which the aureus shares with the cistophori and which distinguishes them from all the other approximately contemporary issues is that Octavian is shown wearing a laurel-wreath. Moreover, the wreath is of the same type, with tie-ribbons, which on the cistophori, as was noted above, echoes the ivy-wreath worn by Antony on his cistophori.17 Another notable point of similarity is the unusually explicit political reference, on the cistophori in the continuation of the obverse legend (LIBERT ATIS P R VINDEX) and on the aureus in the reverse legend. Further distinctive features may be observed in the portrayal of Octavian's head on the aureus and on the PAX cistophori, which, like the laurel wreath, mark them out both from other issues of the same period and from later cistophori. On both the neck is rather strangulated, and the hair around the nape of the neck is shown curling round in six, simple inward- curving lines projecting out from under the wreath-tie behind the ear. Whereas on all other contemporary issues the head extends up to the field- border, on these, as on Antony's cistophori, it is comparatively small, leaving a gap between the top of the head and the beaded border, filled on the cistophori by the continuation of the legend.

The cumulative force of these various affinities between the new aureus and the PAX cistophori must put it beyond doubt that they were produced concurrently at the same Asian mint. This is not the only instance of joint striking of Roman and local coinage in the East. The practice probably began under Antony: aurei and denarii were issued in his name in the East at about the same time as the cistophori discussed above, and it seems likely that the aurei and denarii RRC 527-8 were produced at the same mint as the cistophori, probably Ephesus.18 Joint striking occurred again c. 19 bc, when

16 This affinity was already noted in the original auction catalogue and by Martini (above, nn. 2-3).

The length of the tie-nbbons vanes between dies on the PAX cistophori (see ¡Sutherland, Cistophori, pls. 1-2): on some dies they extend to Octavian's shoulders (e.g. BMC 691), but on others, such as the specimen illustrated on our plate, they are shorter, as on the aureus. Octavian also appears laureate on another recent British Museum acquisition (GR 1996.6-12.1): a cameo, probably belonging early in the development of Octavian's portrait-style, which shows him full- face, with his head both wreathed and covered in the sacrificial manner. For this see W.-R. Megow, Kameen von Augustus bis Alexander Severus (Berlin, 1987), pp. 169-70, no. A27, pl. 22.4; S. Walker, 'A cameo portrait of Augustus', British Museum Magazine 26 (1996), pp. 18-19. (We are grateful to Susan Walker for this information.) 18 See RFC, pp. 368, 377, noting the similarities between the portraits of Octavia on the Antonian aureus RRC 527, the single-portrait Antonian cistophori ( RPC 2201), and an Ephesus bronze {RPC 2574). As is suggested at RPC , p. 368, aurei minted in Asia may have taken the place of the occasional issues of gold earlier produced by various cities, chiefly Ephesus, for




an issue of aurei and denarii has obverse dies plainly engraved by the engravers of a substantial issue of cistophori from Pergamům.19 As we have already noted, some of the other issues of Roman denominations produced in the same period as the new aureus may have been minted in the East.20 So too may some other uncertain issues with the name Augustus in their legend.21 As die-counts show, the cistophori were produced on a much larger scale than the denarii, let alone the aurei.22 Thus it is not particularly surprising that a single specimen should have come to light of a previously unknown aureus minted in the East.

The similarities between the reverse of the new aureus, minted in Asia, and the denarius RIC 270, now generally held to have been minted in Italy, remain puzzling. The explanation may simply be that the denarius was already in circulation and its reverse was used as a partial model by the engravers of the aureus. Another possible solution will be suggested below.

THE REVERSE TYPE AND LEGEND

While the obverse type and legend of the new aureus exhibit, as we have seen, close similarities with its stable-mate, the PAX cistophori, the reverse is unique. This remarkable type and legend must now be examined in more detail.

Octavian is shown on the reverse wearing a toga, that is, in civilian dress, and seated on a curule chair {sella curulis), the prerogative of the higher magistrates.23 He holds a scroll and at his feet there is a scroll-case {scrinium).

Only rarely in his coinage is Octavian/ Augustus shown in a toga. Some coins showing him togate and seated on a curule chair nonetheless commemorate military victory, namely the denarius RIC 270 (PL 20, 2), which has already been noted and will be discussed further below, and two issues of aurei and denarii from the Lugdunum mint. These celebrate successes won by Tiberius and Drusus fighting under Augustus' auspices:

which see G.K.Jenkins, 'Hellenistic gold coins of Ephesos', in C. Bayburtluoglu (ed.), Festschrift Akurgal (= Anadolu 21 (1978-80): Ankara, 1987), pp. 183-8. 19 See C. H. V. Sutherland, 'Augustan aurei and denarii attributable to the mint of Pergamům; RN 15 (1973), pp. 129-51, and RIC, pp. 36-7. The aurei and denarii: RIC 511-26. The cistophori: RIC 505-10 - RPC 2216-20 = Sutherland, Cistophori , Group VII (nos. 446-588). 20 RIC 275-7, 543-5; above, at n. 9. A particular likely candidate for Asian minting is the aureus RIC 277 : its commemoration of the honours conferred in the settlement of 27 bc, both on the reverse and in the final part of the obverse legend, suggests an affinity with the aureus and the cistophori of the previous year. 21 RIC 536-42, 547-8; perhaps also 472-5. See RPC. p. 368. 22 Sutherland reports the known obverse dies for the issues of c.19 as cistophori 71, denarii 18, aurei 10: RIC , p. 36; cf. RPC , pp. 7, 368. 23 On the significance and iconography of curule chairs see T. Schäfer, Imperii Insignia: Sella Curulis und Fasces. Zur Repräsentation römischer Magistrate (Mainz, 1989), and more briefly in Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik (n. 7), pp. 427-40.




Augustus, seated on a platform, receives laurels proffered by soldiers ( RIC 162-5 : 15-13 bc) or a child presented by a barbarian ( RIC 200-1 : 9-8 bc).24 Various issues from the Rome mint show a togate Augustus in a civilian context. An aureus of 16 bc commemorating the Secular Games of the previous year shows him seated on a curule chair and distributing purifying suffimenta {RIC 350). A closer parallel to our aureus is afforded by denarii issued by the moneyers C. Marius and C. Sulpicius Platorinus, probably in 13 bc, portraying Augustus together with Agrippa in scenes alluding to their sharing of the tribunicia potestas. Marius shows Augustus, laureate, and Agrippa, wearing his combined mural and naval crown, standing side by side, each holding a scroll in their hands and with a scrinium at their feet (RIC 397, 400; PL 20, 7); Sulpicius shows them seated together on a rostrate tribunician subsellium (RIC 406-7; Pl. 20, 8).25

On the new aureus and on the denarii of Marius and Sulpicius the toga, the curule chair or tribunes' bench, the scroll and accompanying scrinium all help to convey the image of the princeps enacting the civic role of a magistrate. In employing the magistrate's accoutrements to emblematic effect, these coins form part of an iconographie tradition which came to full development in Augustus' reign. In the coinage of the Late Republic, although there are only a few depictions of togate magistrates, unoccupied curule chairs appear frequently as a symbol of the power and office of the curule magistracies.26 Sculpted togate figures of senators and municipal magistrates seated on curule chairs, either as honorific statues or as grave- monuments, appear from the later first century bc onwards.27 From the same period, sculpted representations of the sella curulis together with other badges of office such as the fasces and the scrinium came to play an important role in the iconography of the grave-monuments of curule and municipal magistrates.28 On a group of such monuments for praetors the front panel of the chair is decorated with a scene showing the deceased magistrate exercising his judicial functions, accompanied by his six lictors and a curule chair.29 The praetor is usually shown seated and without a scroll or scrinium ,

24 Cf. H. Gabelmann, Antike Audienz- und Tribunalszenen (Darmstadt, 1984), pp. 118-24; A. L. Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus. The Case of the Boscoreale Cups (Berkeley, 1995), pp. 107-10. 25 Not a bise Ilium as described in RIC: see Schäfer, Imperii Insignia , pp. 123-4. Cf. also RIC 417, dated to 12 bc: subsellium with legend TR POT. 26 Schäfer, Imperii Insignia , pp. 84-99, pls. 9-12. Togate magistrates: RRC 330, 351 (distributing corn); 372/1-2 (preparing to sacrifice; standing between eagle standard and fasces ); 433 (the regicide Brutus as consul accompanied by lictors with fasces). 27 Schäfer, Imperii Insignia , pp. 130, 134-5, 139-40; H. I. Flower, Ancestor Masks and Aristocratic Power in Roman Culture (Oxford, 1996), pp. 77-9. 28 Schäfer, Imperii Insignia , pp. 135ff., with catalogue at pp. 233ff.; for depictions of scrinia in association with curule chairs see especially pp. 304-8 and pls. 51-4. 29 Schäfer, Imperii Insignia , nos. 2, 6-12, with discussion at pp. 150-60. See also Gabelmann, Audienz- und Tribunalszenen , pp. 155-68, and in general on representations of magistrates




but on the earliest instance (apparently roughly contemporary with the new aureus) he is standing by his chair and holding a scroll above a scrinium (PL 21, 9).

30 Later emperors appear on the coinage in togas, seated or standing,

performing a variety of roles, both external (e.g. exhorting troops, receiving submission from conquered peoples) and domestic (e.g. performing sacrifice, distributing largesse). However, scenes like those on the new aureus and the denarii of Marius and Sulpicius, which show the emperor in a legal context, do not recur after Augustus.31

Statues of emperors seated and togate did occur, though extant examples are rare, in contrast both to standing togate statues and to the principal seated type of imperial statuary which showed the emperor enthroned, draped, with a naked upper body in the manner of a god. This type, used frequently during the Julio-Claudian period, had quite different connotations from seated togate statues, being modelled ultimately on Phidias' statue of Zeus at Olympia.32

No seated togate statue of Augustus survives, but he is shown in this fashion on one of the Boscoreale cups, whose scenes may be copied from a monument erected during his reign.33 On one side of the cup a prince of the imperial family presents barbarian chieftains and their children to Augustus - a scene reminiscent of the Lugdunum coins mentioned above. The other side presents Augustus as world ruler in a hybrid of the civic and the divine (PL 21, 10). Augustus, wearing tunic, toga and patrician boots, sits in a form of curule chair. In his left hand he may hold a scroll; in his right he holds out a globe. To his left Mars brings forward personifications of provinces and nations to pay homage. On his right stands Venus, accompanied by Amor, and beyond her Roma and the Genius of the Roman People. In her hands Venus holds a little winged victory, which she is on the point of placing on

J. Ronke, Magistratische Repräsentation im römischen Relief. Studien zu standes- und statusbezeichnenden Szenen , BAR International Series 370, 3 vols (Oxford, 1987). 30 Schäfer, Imperii Insignia , no. 2, discussed at pp. 150-1, 155-6, 238-41, and illustrated at pls. 22, 26.2; a briefer treatment at Kaiser Augustus und die verlorene Republik , pp. 435-6 (no. 235). The relief, found on the Via Casilina 14 km from Rome and now in the Museo Nazionale, is dated by Schäfer on stylistic grounds to c.30 bc. 31 Cf. Gabelmann, Audienz- und Tribunalszenen , pp. 106-10, 161-2. 32 On seated togate images of emperors see H. G. Niemeyer, Studien zur statuarischen Darstellung der römischen Kaiser (Berlin, 1968), pp. 40-3; Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire , pp. 37-44; C. B. Rose, Dynastie Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture in the Julio-Claudian Period (Cambridge, 1997), p. 75. 33 On these two cups and their possible derivation from a monument see now the exhaustive study of Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire. She holds that the triumph of Tiberius depicted on the other cup was his first (7 bc), not his second (ad 12), as usually supposed. For discussion and catalogue of seated togate figures, see H.-R. Goette, Studien zu römischen Togadarstellungen (Mainz, 1990), pp. 75-9 and 104-8. The only one mentioned of Augustus is that on the Boscoreale cup.




the globe in Augustus' hand. Victory carries a long palm branch over her left shoulder and with her right hand holds out a laurel wreath to Augustus.

This scene is strikingly similar to that depicted earlier on the reverse of the denarius in the IMP CAESAR series, to which we have already referred ( RIC 270; Pl. 20, 2): on the cup Octavian is on the point of receiving Victory; on the coin he holds her in his right hand. Like the cup, the scene on the coin is hybrid. Octavian is shown in civilian mode, togate and seated on a curule chair: this, as we have seen, is unique for the IMP CAESAR series and the associated CAESAR DIVI F series, in which he is otherwise portrayed as a heroic war leader and linked to divinities. However, the divine associations are very much present on this coin itself : Octavian may appear in the guise of a magistrate, but he holds a goddess in his hand, and the obverse shows a herm of Jupiter with Octavian's features.

Victory also appears on the reverses of a number of other coins in the CAESAR DIVI F and IMP CAESAR series, always standing on a globe and with a wreath in her right hand, and usually with a palm branch in her left. She appears on her own on RIC 254-5 and 268 (on the latter with vexillum instead of palm branch), and on the apex of the pediment of a building on RIC 266. These various representations make a specific reference. On 28 August 29, a fortnight after his triple triumph, Octavian dedicated an altar of Victory in the restored Curia (the senate-house), accompanied by a statue of Victory brought from Tarentum, which he decked with the spoils of Egypt. The coins surely depict this statue, and the building on RIC 266 is to be identified with the Curia. A copy of the statue of Victory may have been erected on the pediment; alternatively, the engraver may have transferred it there by artistic licence.34 The Boscoreale cup presents a mythical version of the composition of the statue, with Venus in the act of placing Victory on the globe held by Augustus.35

On one level the scene on the reverse of RIC 270 is to be read as commemorating Octavian's gift of the statue of Victory in the Curia.36 It is, however, rich in (no doubt deliberate) ambivalence. Formally, the state of Victory on a globe was doubtless represented as betokening the world-rule of the Roman people, re-established by the victory over Egypt. This may be

34 The dedication: Inscr. Ital. vol. 13.1, p. 504 (= EJ, p. 51); Dio 51.22.1-2; C. J. Simpson, 'The Curia Iulia and the Ara Victoriae : a "politico-religious" imperative in August 29 bc', in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History , vol. 9 (Brussels, 1998), pp. 225-30. On the statue of Victory see T. Hölscher, Victoria Romana (Mainz, 1976), pp. 6ff. Gurval, Actium and Augustus (n. 7), pp. 61-2, unconvincingly doubts the identification of the figure on the coins with the statue. The absence of distinctive features such as the sidus Iulium tells against the rival identification of the building on RIC 266 as the temple of Divus Iulius (contrast RRC 540).

Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire , pp. 25-6, 204. It is surprising that the figure of Victory does not surmount a globe on RIC 270, as on the

other coins. The engraver may have omitted the globe merely for technical reasons.




evoked on the coin, on which the figure of Victory is turned away from Octavian and appears to be offering her wreath to an unseen recipient, evidently the Roman people. Yet the victory over Egypt was Octavian's, and men might naturally read the statue as celebrating the victorious leader as world ruler.37 Similarly, while the scene on RIC 270 depicts Octavian dressed as a magistrate and making a donation, it also unmistakeably evokes Phidias' statue of Zeus holding Victory, which had frequently appeared as a Hellenistic coin-type.38

We saw in the previous section that the dated coins issued in the years 29-27 BC differ in some notable respects from the coins of the CAESAR DIVI F and IMP CAESAR series : their types and legends explicitly commemorate specific achievements of Octavian/ Augustus, and there are no overt divine associations. All this is true of the new aureus, which, despite its other similarities, is in these respects in marked contrast with the denarius RIC 270. The reverse legend, as we shall see, elucidates the type. Octavian appears simply as the civil magistrate, and on neither obverse or reverse is there any hint of divine association - with the important exception of his filiation ('son of the diuus '). In one respect, however, the new aureus does contrast with the other dated coins of the period: it is the only one of these coins to show Octavian on both sides. Indeed, this occurs only rarely in the whole coinage of Octavian/ Augustus, and hardly ever do coins which show him on the obverse accord him as much prominence on the reverse as he receives on this aureus -a feature which is in subliminal conflict with the coin's overt message.

What then is the meaning of the scene depicted on the reverse of the aureus? The gesture which Octavian is making with the scroll in his right hand is quite different from that of the praetor in the contemporary grave- relief (PL 21, 9). The praetor is shown holding his scroll downwards, immediately above the scrinium : the impression is conveyed that he has just taken the scroll from the scrinium or is about to replace it there. By contrast, on the aureus, the scroll is not brought into relationship with the scrinium at the foot of the curule chair. Instead, Octavian holds it out as though offering it to an unseen recipient. The gesture recalls that made with the wreath by the figure of Victory on the denarius RIC 270. To explore further the significance of the scene and of this gesture in particular we must turn to the examination of the reverse legend LEGES ET IVRA P R RESTITVIT.

In its style and content the legend lacks close parallels in the Roman coinage of this or any other period. No other Augustan legend is so explicit

37 So Dio 51.22.1. The connection would have been enhanced when the gold shield commemorating Augustus' virtues was dedicated in close proximity to the statue in 27 bc (RG 34.2). They frequently appear together on the later coinage ( RIC 31-2, 45-9, 61-2, 88-95) and in art (Hölscher, Victoria Romana , pp. 103ff.). 38 Cf. Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 1 1), pp. 100-1 ; Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire , pp. 53-6.




about the constitutional actions of the princeps. Moreover, together with one Republican and a few later imperial examples, it is one of the very few instances of a Roman coin legend in the form of a main sentence with an expressed finite verb.39 Coins of Octavian/ Augustus very frequently commemorate his achievements, either directly or, more commonly, indirectly by allusion to the resulting honours. However, this is the only instance on his coinage where a main sentence is used of one of his achievements.40

Leges , as used here, means the statutes, the positive laws. The word ius , however, has a wider range of meanings than lex , and iura here is accordingly more difficult to render. Sometimes iura can be a virtual synonym for leges ; sometimes it is closer to 'justice', sometimes to 'rights'.41 In what follows the phrase leges et iura will be translated 'laws and rights', but the elasticity of the concept of iura must be borne in mind.

The combination leges et iura , which has the appearance of a customary formula, in fact seems not to be so.42 However, the words are found juxtaposed on a number of occasions.43 They also, not surprisingly, appear together in legal inscriptions, sometimes in tralatician legal formulae,44 but

39 RRC All (C. Memmius, mid-50sBc: MEMMIVS AED CEREALIA PREIMVS FECIT); RIC Nero 50 and 58 (IANVM CLVSIT PACE P R TERRA MARIQ PARTA), 289-91 etc. (PACE P R VBIQ PARTA IANVM CLVSIT), 263-71 etc. (PACE P R TERRA MARIO PARTA IANVM CLVSIT). The abbreviation REST in the legends of the various 'restored' issues of the late first-early second centuries ad is short for RESTITVIT, as revealed by, e.g., RIC Titus 192-4, where it appears in full. Cf. also RIC Domitian 115-19, 377-83 (LVD SAEC FEGIT1). 40 Ablative absolute phrases are commonest: AEGVPTO CAPTA ( RIC 275, 544-6), ASIA RECEPTA (RIC 276), SIGNIS RECEPTIS or variants (RIC 41, 58, 60, 80-7, 131-7, 287-9 304-5, 314-15, 508-10, 521-6), ARMENIA CAPTA or variants (RIC 290-2, 306-7, 514-20). As was noted above (at n. 11), Augustus' civic crown is alluded to on RIC 277 by the ablative absolute CIVIBVS SERV ATEIS, but later always with the formula OB CIVIS SERVATOS, which probably stood on the original above Augustus' door. Also found are honorific formulae introduced by SPQR leading to a QUOD-clause specifying the reason for the conferment of the honour: RIC 140-4, 358, 360-2. 41 Cf. Oxford Latin Dictionary , s.u. ius for the range of meanings, especially senses 1-4, approximating to 'law', and 7, 10, 12-13 for the wider usage. 42 There are, however, a number of occurrences. It appears in exactly this form at Cic. De Or. I.253, Legg. 1.35; Quint. Deci. Min. 345.5; with ac: Cic. Caec. 70; Pseud. Quint. Deci. Mai. I I . 1 ; 1 5.4 ; Juv. 2.43 & 72 ; iura . . . (et) : Plaut. Ep. 292, Most. 126 ; Livy 30.37.9 ; Quint. Deci. Min. 331.17; iura legesque : Livy 4.15.3. 43 E.g. Cato, ORF fr. 252; Lucr. 5.1147; Sail. Jug. 31.20; Vitr. 9.praef.2 ; Manil. 4.214; Ovid, Am. 2.17.23-4, A.A. 3.58, Trist. 5.7.47-8; Lucan 1.176-7, 2.316; Sil. Pun. 1.303; Pliny, Ep. 8.24.4; Quint. Deci. Min. 251.7, 260.6, 266.1, 274.9; Pseud.-Quint. Deci. Mai. 15.3, 17.9; Stat. Silv. 1.4.11-12, 3.5.87-8; Suet. Pratum (p. 315 Roth). 44 In these formulae their meaning may approach 'terms and conditions': thus lex Cornelia de XX Quaestoribus (Roman Statutes (n. 2) 14), col. II, 11.7-14, apparitores to be chosen by quaestors on the same terms as before (eo iure ea lege) ; lex coloniae Genetivae (Roman Statutes 25), ch. LXVI, 1.36, the colony's priests to have the same status as those in other colonies who hold office on the best terms (optimo iure optima lege). However, in the lex de Gallia Cisalpina (Roman Statutes 28), ch. XXI, 1.10, ch. XXII, 1.40, the formula lex ius is used precisely to mean 'statute and law' (cf. ch. XXI, 1.14: iure lege).




also in more discursive contexts.45 In Cicero, the most abundant near- contemporary literary source, the two words are not uncommonly found together, whether adduced as objects of the subversive attentions of some villainous opponent in the speeches, or as topics relevant to rhetorical, philosophical and political theory and the public duties of the Roman orator and magistrate.46 They appear together in speeches as part of a rhetorical list along with other similar words such as libertas , senātus consulta , senātus auctoritas , religiones , mores , foedera , iudicia. Cicero often associates lex or leges with ius or ius civile in his works of political or moral philosophy as important concepts, contrasting in meaning but related in significance.47 They are central to his conception of what binds citizens together into a humane community.48

The verb restituii means 'he restored', but unfortunately the overall meaning of the legend is left uncertain because of the ambiguity of the abbreviation P R. This could be completed either as the genitive form P(OPVLI) R(OMANI) or as the dative P(OPVLO) R(OMANO). If the genitive is adopted, the legend may be translated : ' He has restored the laws and rights of the Roman people'. The dative will yield the translation: 'He has restored their laws and rights to the Roman people'. On balance the dative version seems the more likely, both linguistically and in the light of the other evidence for Octavian's actions in 28-27, to be considered in the next section, which represents him as engaging in a process of restitution to the senate and people. In the ensuing discussion it will be assumed that the dative version of the translation is correct. However, even if the genitive were in fact the correct form, the overall sense would not be greatly altered. On either view the legend implies that the Roman people's laws and rights had lapsed and were now revived.49

The scene depicted on the reverse type provides a visual correlative for the legend. The setting should probably be taken to be a contio , a meeting of the Roman people, with Octavian seated on the Rostra or another tribunal. The

45 Cf. lex Antonia de Termessibus {Roman Statutes 19), col II, 1 1.17-22, concerning the leges , ius and consuetudo existing between Rome and Termessus, ius being used as a collective term for the various iura enjoyed by each side. For a fuller sense of the relationship between lex , ius and iura see lex coloniae Genetivae, ch. CXXXIII, 11.33-38, on the legal rights of the colonists' wives: 'eae mulieres legibus c(oloniae) G(enetiuae) I(uliae) <iu>rique parento iuraque ex h(ac) l(ege), quaecumque in hac lege scripta sunt, omnium rerum ex h(ac) l(ege) habento s(ine) d(olo) m(alo).' 46 Cf. 2 Verr. 2.46; Rab. Perd. 17; Flacc. 62; Red. Sen. 34; Sest. 56; Deiot. 30; Phil. 8.10, 13.1 ; De Or. 1.159, 2.68, 3.76; Legg. 1.17; Off. 1.53, 1.124. 47 Legg. 1.16, 19, 23, 33, 42, 56; Off. 1.51, 2.15, 3.69; Rep. 1.49, 3.16, 3.42; N.D. 2.148.

48 Cf. Off. 1.53. 49 Restituii is thus used here in what the Oxford Latin Dictionary (s.v. restituo) defines as sense 4a, 4 to bring back into existence or use, re-establish, restore, revive (an institution, practice etc.)', which may take a dative expressing the beneficiary, as at Cic. Mur. 40 ('equestri ordini restituii non solum dignitatem sed etiam uoluptatem ') and Livy 3.54.7 ('congratulante libertatem concordiamque ciuitati restitutam').




scroll and scrinium are perhaps to be interpreted as a symbolic representation of the people's laws and rights. Alternatively, a more literal interpretation is possible : the scroll may contain an edict which was represented as restoring their laws and rights. We shall see in the next section that such a claim may have been made for an edict known to have been issued by Octavian in his sixth consulship (28 bc), the year to which the aureus is dated by its obverse legend.

Edicts were normally issued orally, being read out at a contio by the issuing magistrate's herald (praeco); one or more copies were then put on public display.49a Thus if the scroll is taken to be an edict, the scene on the coin may show the moment prior to its being read out, with Octavian holding the scroll out to the unseen praeco. However, it is unlikely that this was the only interpretation intended. Whether the scroll is taken as an edict or simply as a symbol of the people's laws and rights, we are surely meant to identify the unseen recipient to whom Octavian is offering it not merely as a praeco but as the beneficiary, namely the Roman people. Octavian's gesture, as was noted above, is similar to that made by Victory with her wreath on RIC 270, and the unseen recipient is the same in each case. The type thus provides further confirmation for the dative version of the legend: the scene portrays the restoration of their laws and rights to the Roman people.

The reference to Octavian's sixth consulship on the obverse legend makes it clear that the restoration of the people's laws and rights commemorated on the reverse type and legend formed part of the political settlement which Octavian/ Augustus carried out in 28-27. We must shortly turn to a re- examination of that settlement with the double aim of elucidating the reverse of the aureus and assessing its implications for our understanding of the settlement itself. Before we do so, however, some further consideration of the PAX cistophori (PL 20, 4) is called for.

As we have already noted, the explicit political reference in the title LIBERT ATIS P(OPVLI) R(OMANI) VINDEX ('champion of the liberty of the Roman people') attributed to Octavian on the PAX cistophori finds a parallel in the no less explicit reverse legend of their companion piece, the new aureus. How, in the light of the new aureus, is the title to be interpreted?

The phrase uindicare in libertatem originally applied to the action of the adsertor claiming an individual's freedom in a legal hearing over whether that person should be free or a slave (causa liberālis).50 By the late Republic, this phrase and cognate phrases such as uindex libertatis had become clichés of political discourse. Politicians of all persuasions justified the use of force in

49a Th. Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (Leipzig, 1887-8), vol. 1, pp. 205-6; W. Kunkel, Staatsordnung und Staatspraxis der römischen Republik. 2: Die Magistratur (Munich, 1995), pp. 105-6, 125. 50 On causae liberales see W. W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge, 1908), pp. 652-72.



184 j. w. RICH AND J. H. C. WILLIAMS

civil disputes on the grounds that it was necessary to vindicate the freedom of the Roman people or the res publica from tyranny (< dominatio , regnum). Among the justifications which Caesar adduced for his resort to arms in 49 was the claim that he was acting 'to vindicate his own liberty and that of the Roman people, oppressed by an oligarchic faction' {Bell. Civ. 1.22.5: ut se et populum Romanům /actione paucorum oppressum in libert atem uindicareť). When Octavian raised a private army against Antony in 44, Cicero induced the senate to legitimize his position, using the argument that by his private initiative he had liberated the republic and so become its saviour {Phil. 3.4: rem publicam priuato Consilio ...liber auit; 3.14: conseruator ; cf. 4.2, 4; 5.3, 43-6). Augustus opened his Res Gestae with this action, claiming that by raising the private army 'I vindicated the liberty of the republic, oppressed by the tyranny of a faction' (RG 1.1: rem publicam a dominatione factionis oppressam in libertatem uindicaui).51

The cistophorus reverse, with its personified figure of Pax, commemorates Octavian's restoration of peace through his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra. The title accorded to him on the obverse celebrates another aspect of the same victory, namely the repelling of the threat which they had posed to the liberty of the Roman people. It uses the old cliché, but there is a significant difference. Octavian's side represented the war not as a civil war against Antony, but as an external war against the Queen of Egypt. Thus the threat to the people's liberty was taken to be not, as in the earlier conflicts, the tyranny of an individual or faction but domination by a foreign power.52 Similar language was employed in official celebrations of the victory. Thus, on 13 September 30, having learnt of Antony's final defeat and death, the senate decreed Octavian a grass wreath, the corona obsidionalis : this was the highest military distinction, awarded to those who saved a whole army, and in Octavian's case indicated that by his victory he had saved the whole community.53 Doubtless on the same day, the senate decreed, as calendars inform us, that 1 August, the day of the capture of Alexandria, should be feriae because on that day Octavian 'freed the republic from very grave

51 On the political use of the phrase uindicare in libertatem and its cognates under the Republic and early principáte see W. Weber, Princeps : Studien zur Geschichte des Augustus, vol. 1 (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1936), pp. 137-40* (n. 557); C. Wirszubski, Libertas as a Political Idea at Rome during the Late Republic and Early Principáte (Cambridge, 1950), pp. 100-6; Mannsperger, 'Apollon gegen Dionysos' (n. 15); G. Walser, 'Der Kaiser als Vindex Libertatis', Historia 4 (1955), pp. 353-67; L. Wickert, 'Der Prinzipat und die Freiheit', in R. Klein (ed.), Prinzipat und Freiheit (Darmstadt, 1969), pp. 94-135; R. Scheer, 'Vindex Libertatis', Gymnasium 78 (1971), pp. 182-8; H. Braunert, 'Zum Eingangssatz der res gestae Diui Augusti' Chiron 4 (1974), pp. 343-58; N. K. Mackie, ' Res Publica Restituía : a Roman myth', in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History , vol. 4 (Brussels, 1986), pp. 302-40, especially pp. 310-13, 325-6; G. K. Galinsky, Augustan Culture (Princeton, 1996), pp. 42-57. On the Roman concept of liberty see especially P. A. Brunt, The Fall of the Roman Republic and Related Essays (Oxford, 1988), pp. 281-350. 52 Cf. Mackie, ' Res Publica Restituta' pp. 325-6. 53 Pliny, NH 22.13; Dio 51.19.5; Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 11), pp. 146-52.




danger' (rem publicam tristissimo periculo liberauit).54 An inscription of 29 from a monument in the Forum (probably his arch) set up by the senate and people in Octavian's honour gives as the reason for the conferment of the honour 'the republic having been preserved' (re publica conseruata).55

Does the title LIBERT ATIS P R VINDEX on the cistophori refer simply to Octavian's victory in the war, or is there also a reference to the political settlement which he initiated in his sixth consulship, when, as the legend declares, the coins were minted? Mommsen held that the legend did refer to this political settlement. This view was challenged by Wirszubski, and recent writers have generally avoided asserting the connection.56 The primary reference must be to the victory in the war, and those followers of Mommsen who referred the legend exclusively to the settlement initiated in 28 were certainly mistaken. None the less, the new aureus does go some way towards vindicating Mommsen. The fact that the comparably explicit political reference on the aureus produced at the same time by the same Asian mint relates unequivocally to the political settlement makes it more likely that the cistophorus legend too alludes to that settlement. The claim that Octavian by his victory had preserved the liberty of the Roman people could not have been maintained if he had not proceeded to what could be represented as the surrender of the extraordinary powers which he had acquired in the upheavals of civil war. The evidence of the companion aureus suggests that the title accorded Octavian on the cistophori celebrates not only his defence of the liberty of the Roman people against the enemy threat, but the restoration of that liberty through the settlement initiated in 28.

It is in fact likely that the title on the cistophorus alludes to the same aspect of the political settlement as the aureus reverse. In Roman political discourse laws and rights were seen as a necessary concomitant of liberty, and the term libertas appears frequently in association with lex/leges and/or ius/iura. Thus a fragment from a speech of the Elder Cato (the earliest surviving instance) asserts that 'we should have common enjoyment of right, law, freedom and the commonwealth, but of glory and honour in accordance with the individual's own achievement' ( ORF fr. 252: iure , lege , liberiate , re publica communiter uti oportet , gloria atque honore , quomodo sibi quisque

54 The survival of several calendars' entries (Fasti Arvales, and those of Praeneste and Amiternum) confirms the wording of the decree: Inscr. Ital. vol. 13.2, p. 489 = EJ, p. 49. 55 ILS 81 = EJ 17. The inscription survives only in Renaissance copies. For its attribution to the Arch of Augustus see J. W. Rich, 'Augustus's Parthian honours, the temple of Mars Ultor and the arch in the Forum Romanům', PBSR 66 (1998), pp. 71-128, at pp. 100-14.

Th. Mommsen, Res Gestae Divi Augusti2 (Berlin, 1883), pp. 145-7, drawing the mistaken inference that the province of Asia was restored to the people in 28, ahead of the other provinces; Wirszubski, Libertas , pp. 105-6. For followers of Mommsen see e.g. Mattingly, BMC , p. cxxv; C. H. V. Sutherland, Coinage in Roman Imperial Policy 31 bc-ad 68 (London, 1951), p. 31 ; L. Wickert, 'Princeps', RE vol. 22 (1954), col. 1998-2296, at col. 2081. Sutherland's later statements were more cautious: Cistophori , pp. 89-90; Roman History and Coinage 44 bc-ad 69 (Oxford, 1987), p. 5.



186 J.W. RICH AND J. H. C.WILLIAMS

struxit). Cicero declares the leges to be the 'foundation of liberty' {Clu. 146: fundamentum libertatis ) and represents Clodius as a threat to ins, aequitas, leges, libertas {Mil. 177). For Livy (2.1.1) the overthrow of the kings both established libertas and made the commands of the leges more powerful than those of men." In view of this well-established linkage, we may reasonably conclude that the title of champion of the liberty of the Roman people accorded to Octavian on the cistophori implies a specific allusion to the restoration to the people of their laws and rights, commemorated on the companion aureus.

Thus not only the reverse type and legend of the aureus, but also the obverse legend of the cistophori are contemporary witnesses for the political settlement in the year of its inception. But what authority can be accorded to them? This is not the place to re-open the much discussed questions of the relationship of mintmasters to the imperial government and the extent to which those who selected types and legends served as mouthpieces for the regime.58 Some observations are, nonetheless, in order. It seems likely that the types and legends for the PAX cistophori and their companion piece, the new aureus, were selected in the province of Asia rather than imposed by a directive issuing from the central government. It is possible that the reverse type of the aureus and the politically explicit legends of the aureus and the cistophori were designed at this local mint. In that case, they reflect a provincial perception, but a well informed one, for their designer was evidently both aware of current political developments at Rome and adept in Roman political discourse.

While it is conceivable that the politically explicit legends were devised at the mint, this is not the most likely explanation. Elsewhere on the coinage of Octavian/ Augustus his titulature is always made up of offices and titles which had been officially conferred on him, and so it is much more likely that the title libetatis populi Romani uindex too had been officially conferred rather than merely attributed to him at the mint.59 The reverse legend of the

57 For other passages linking libertas with lex and/or ius see e.g. Cic. 2 Verr. 5.163, Clu. 155, Phil. 8.10, 11.36, Off. 2.24, 3.83; Nep. Timol. 5.2-3; Sail. Or. Lepidi 4, Or. Philippi 10; Livy 4.15.3, 39.27.9, 45.31.4, 32.5. See further H. Kloesel, Libertas (Breslau, 1935), pp. 24ff. (repr. in H. Oppermann (ed.), Römische Wertbegriffe (Darmstadt, 1967), pp. 136ff); Brunt, Fall of the Republic , pp. 296, 318, 334ff. 58 For recent contributions see B. M. Levick, "Propaganda and the imperial coinage', Antichthon 16 (1982), pp. 104-16; A. Wallace-Hadrill, 'Image and authority in the coinage of Augustus', JRS 76 (1986), pp. 66-87. 59 Although not attested elsewhere, the title uind(ex) lib(ertatis) accorded to Claudius on the Cyzicus arch (ILS 217) is also likely to have been conferred by senatorial decree (it may have stood in the missing portion of the inscription of Claudius' arch at Rome (ILS 216), from which the Cyzicus inscription appears to derive: cf. A. A. Barrett, 'Claudius' British Victory Arch in Rome', Britannia 22 (1991), pp. 1-19). The sestertii of Vespasian with the legend S P Q R ADSERTORI LIBERTATIS PVBLICAE (RIC Vespasian 411, 455-6) surely indicate that, when voting him the corona ciuica (by then accorded to all emperors at their accession), the senate declared that he had earned it as champion of public liberty. (The synonym adsertor was at this




aureus also may most plausibly be taken as reproducing a formulation which had been used publicly at Rome. It may indeed derive from words actually used by Octavian himself in a public proclamation in 28. However, the direct source is perhaps more likely to be a decree of the senate in which one of the grounds for conferring honours on Octavian was stated to be that leges et iura populo Romano restituii. On this hypothesis, the legends of these two companion issues may derive from the same honorific decree: the aureus reproduces one of the stated grounds for the honours, and one of the honours conferred was the title libertatis populi Romani uindex recorded on the cistophori.

If the suggestion is correct that these legends derive from a decree in Octavian's honour, these two issues are rather more in line with the rest of his coinage than at first appeared. As was noted above, it was very common for the achievements of Octavian/ Augustus to be celebrated on the coinage by allusion to the resulting honours. Coins with these honorific themes frequently reproduce formulae which accompanied the honours, most notably the phrase ob ciuis seruatos which appears on so many numismatic representations of Augustus' oak crown.60 It is not a difficulty that this honour of 28 is not otherwise attested: it will have been eclipsed by the heavily promoted honours conferred in January 27, after the political settlement had been completed.

We noted above the striking similarity between the reverse types of our aureus, minted in Asia, and of the denarius RIC 270, usually held to have been minted in Italy, both of which show Octavian as seated and togate. The hypothesis that our aureus commemorates an honour conferred on Octavian may help to account for this similarity. Kuttner has recently suggested that the denarius type derives from a statue.61 If this is correct, the same is likely to be true for the aureus. If so, the types may be taken to allude to a pair of seated togate statues of Octavian erected, or at any rate decreed, in 28, of which one commemorated his gift of the statue of Victory and the other his

period used in place of uindex , probably because of the role of C. Julius Vindex in the civil war: cf. Suet. Galb. 9.2.) From the time of Claudius on the theme of Libertas was commonly used on the coinage and elsewhere in praise of a new emperor who took the place of one deemed to be a tyrant: see e.g. RIC Claudius 97, 113, Galba passim , Vitellius 9-10, 43-4, 69, 104-5, 128, Vespasian 267, 290, 428-30, 474, 492, Nerva 7, 19, 31, 36, 64, 76, 86-7, 100; C. Kraay, 'The coinage of Vindex and Galba, ad 68, and the continuity of the Augustan Principáte', NC6 9 (1949), pp. 129-49; Walser, 4 Der Kaiser als Vindex Libertatis', pp. 362-4; Wickert, 'Der Prinzipat und die Freiheit', pp. 98-102; C. Howgego, Ancient History from Coins (London and New York, 1995), p. 76. 60 See above nn. 11, 40 for this and other honorific formulae on Augustan coins. 61 Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire (n. 24), pp. 53-5. RIC 271, which, like RIC 270, belongs to the IMP CAESAR series, and which shows Octavian on top of a columna rostrata , certainly evokes an actual monument. Such columns were erected after both Naulochus and Actium, and the Naulochus one is known to have been surmounted by a statue of Octavian: Appian, BC 5.130; Servius, Georg , 3.29; Zanker, Power of Images (n. 7), pp. 41-2.




restoration of their laws and rights to the Roman people. The erection of these statues may have been one of the provisions of the honorific decree from which the legends of the aureus and the cistophori derive.

This hypothesis about the origin of the reverse type of the aureus and the politically explicit legends of the aureus and the cistophori is, of course, speculative. There is, however, no reason to doubt that the reverse of the aureus was designed on the basis of sound information about recent events at Rome and the manner in which they had been presented to the Roman public. It thus constitutes a new piece of evidence of the first importance for the settlement of 28-27 bc, to which we must now turn.

THE SETTLEMENT OF 28-27 BC

The Lex Titia, passed on 27 November 43, had created Antony, Lepidus and Octavian triumvirs 'to set the state to rights' ( triumuiri rei publicae constituendae) for five years with wide-ranging powers. The nature of those powers is in many respects obscure, but they included the right to appoint the magistrates in advance, and the provinces were divided among the triumvirs, so that the governors (although still mostly ranking as proconsuls) were their appointees. Under the triumvirs the magistrates, senate and assemblies continued to exercise some of their functions: the Roman People, for example, will have met to confirm the triumvirs' nominees as magistrates, and may even have chosen some of the junior magistrates themselves. Much, however, was done simply by the triumvirs' fiat, and with scant regard for law and custom.62

The triumvirate, belatedly renewed in 37, expired at the end of 33.63 Octavian, however, continued to exercise extensive powers, and his defeat of Antony in 31-30 made him sole ruler of the Roman world. From 31 he held the consulship continuously, but his power did not rest on any formal basis. In the Res Gestae (34.1, cited below) he claimed rather to have been in possession of supreme power by universal consent. This consent had received symbolic expression in the oath sworn in 32 by the people of Italy and the western provinces, demanding him as leader in the war which he won at Actium ( RG 25.2).

Having disposed of his last rival, Octavian's first aim must have been to

62 The principal sources for the triumvirs' powers are Appian, BC 4.2 and Dio 46.55.3-4. On these powers and on the workings of government in the triumviral period see F. G. B. Millar, 'Triumvirate and Principáte', JRS 63 (1973), pp. 50-67, at pp. 50-61 ; J. Bleicken, Zwischen Triumvirat und Prinzipat (Göttingen, 1990), pp. 11-65; U. Laffi, 'Poteri triumvirali e organi repubblicani', in A. Gara and D. Foraboschi (eds), Il triumvirato costituente alla fine della repubblica romana. Scritti in onore di Mario Attilio Levi (Como, 1993), pp. 37-65.

For recent discussion of the terminal date of the triumvirate see K. M. Girardet, Per continuos annos decern (res gestae divi Augusti 7, 1). Zur Frage nach dem Endtermin des Triumvirats', Chiron 25 (1995), pp. 147-61; C. B. R. Pelling, CAH2 vol. 10 (1996), pp. 67-8.




put his supremacy on a stable footing. To do so, it was essential to legitimate his rule and make it as widely acceptable as possible by giving it a republican guise. The fate of Julius Caesar was a warning against seeking to establish overt monarchy. Already in 36 Octavian had promised to restore 'the entire constitution', and Antony had later given similar undertakings.64

Octavian returned to Rome in 29, entering the city in a triple triumph on 13-15 August. He remained at Rome until the summer of 27, and it was during this period that he set about the task of putting his power on a new basis within the framework of republican tradition.65 He was in a very strong position. There were, it is true, still dissidents : a conspiracy led by Lepidus's son had been suppressed in 31 or 30, and other conspiracies were detected later in the reign. However, opposition is unlikely to have been as widespread as is sometimes supposed, and there was no serious prospect of armed uprising.66 For the great majority of the population, both in Rome and throughout the empire, the dominant emotion must have been relief at the ending of civil war.

In the city itself Octavian displayed conspicuous munificence. The triple triumph was followed within a few days by the dedications of the temple of Divus Julius (18 August) and the altar of Victory in the restored Curia (28 August). In 28 there were further spectacles, including the first celebration of the quadriennial games decreed by the senate after Actium and, on 9 October, the dedication of the temple of Apollo Palatinus. The Roman plebs , as well as the veterans, received a money distribution from Octavian's spoils, and Dio (51.21.5) reports that this and other benefactions led to such an increase in the money supply that interest rates fell to a third of their previous level.67

At the same time Octavian put through various measures which purported to reverse recent failings and restore the state to older republican ways. In 29-28, by a special grant of censorial power, he and Agrippa held a census, the first to be completed since 70. Their censorial functions included a revision of the senate's membership, in which a start was made on reducing the number of senators to the pre-civil war level by removing those perceived as socially undesirable.68 In 28 the city's temples were comprehensively

64 Appian, BC 5.132; Dio 49.41.6, 50.7.1. 65 J. Crook, CAtí1 vol. 10, pp. 75ff., gives an excellent brief account of Octavian's activity during this stay in Rome. 66 Hostility to the regime is judiciously minimized by K. A. Raaflaub and L. J. Samons II, 'Opposition to Augustus', in K. A. Raaflaub and M. Toher (eds), Between Republic and Empire (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1990), pp. 417-54. M. Licinius Crassus, who triumphed from Macedonia on 4 July 27, but did not dedicate spolia opima for his killing of an enemy commander, has sometimes been seen as a focus of disaffection, but see J. W. Rich, ' Crassus and the spolia opima' Chiron 26 (1996), pp. 85-127. 67 For the spectacles, dedications and benefactions see especially Dio 51.21-2, 53.1.3-2.3; Inscr. Ital. vol. 13.2, pp. 497, 503^, 518-19 (= EJ, pp. 50-3). 68 RG 8.2; Suet. Aug . 27.5, 35.1; Dio 52.42.1-4, 53.1.3; Inscr. Ital. vol. 13.1, pp. 255 (= EJ 323).




refurbished : this was a potent symbolic gesture, for Romans had traditionally prided themselves on their piety and the civil wars were widely regarded as punishment for neglect of the gods.69 The following year saw another symbolic gesture, this time of personal modesty: Octavian melted down some 80 silver statues of himself which had been erected in the city and used the proceeds to dedicate gold tripods in the precinct of Apollo Palatinus.70

In addition, Octavian addressed the issue of his own role within the state, by what he represented as the surrender of his extraordinary powers. This apparent surrender of power and the nature of Octavian's subsequent position in the state are among the most discussed questions in Roman history.71 Yet the evidence which bears upon them is quite meagre, and the acquisition of additional contemporary material in the form of the new aureus is thus an extraordinary piece of good fortune. However, before we can assess this new information, we must review the other evidence and the conclusions which have been drawn from it.

Pride of place must go to Augustus' own statement ( RG 34) :

in consulatu sexto et septimo , po[stquam b]ella [ciuil'ia exstinxeram , per consensum uniuersorum 'potitus reru]m om[n]ium , rem publicam ex mea potestate in senat[us populique Rom]ani [a]rbitrium transtuli. (2) quo pro merito meo senatu[s consulto Au]gust[us appe]llatus sum et laureis postes aedium mearum u[elatí' pubĶice coronaq]ue ciuica super ianuam meam fixa est [et clu'peus [aureu]s in [c]uria Iulia positus, quem mihi senatum pop[ulumq]ue Rom[anu]m dare uirtutis clement[iaeque e]t iustitiae et pieta[tis caus]sa testatu[m] est pe[r e]ius clupei [inscription]em. (3) post id tem[pus a]uctoritate [omnibus praestiti , potest]atis au[tem n]ihilo ampliu[s habu]i quam cet[eri , qui m]ihi quoque in ma[gis]tra[t]u conlegae J[uerunt].

u[elatí' Wölfflin: u[estití' Mommsen

In my sixth and seventh consulships, after I had extinguished the civil wars, having acquired everything by the consent of all, I transferred the res publica from my power to the control of the senate and the Roman people. (2) In return for this service of mine by senatorial decree I was called Augustus, and the door-posts of my house were publicly screened with laurel, and a civic crown was placed above my door and a

69 RG 20.4: Livy 4.20.7; Suet. Aug. 30.2; Dio 53.2.4; cf. Hor. Od. 3.6.1-8. 70 RG 24.2; Suet. Aug. 52; Dio 53.22.3; Zanker, Power of Images (n. 8), pp. 86-9. Dio's statement that the silver was used for coining is probably erroneous: see Sutherland, Roman History and Coinage (n. 56), pp. 10-13. 71 The more recent discussions include P. Sattler, Augustus und der Senat (Göttingen, 1960), pp. 34ff. ; P. A. Brunt and J. M. Moore, Res Gestae Divi Augusti (Oxford, 1967), pp. 8-10, 75-80; Millar, 4 Triumvirate and Principáte' (n. 62); P. A. Brunt, '"Augustus" e la "Respublica' ", in La rivoluzione romana (Biblioteca di Labeo 6, 1982), pp. 236-44; D. Kienast, Augustus: Prinzeps und Monarch (Darmstadt, 1982), pp. 71-84; J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, 'The settlement of 27 BC', in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History , vol. 4 (Brussels, 1986), pp. 345-65; Rich, Cassius Dio (n. 11), pp. 132ff.; Bleicken, Zwischen Triumvirat und Prinzipat (n. 57), pp. 82-93 ; Lacey, Augustus and the Principáte (n. 2), pp. 77-99 (revised version of 'Octavian in the Senate, January 27', first published in J RS 64 (1974), pp. 176-84); Crook, CAH2 vol. 10, pp. 76ff., 1 13ff. ; P. Southern, Augustus (London and New York, 1998), pp. 109ff.




golden shield was placed in the Curia Iulia, which the senate and the Roman people gave to me because of my courage, clemency, justice and piety, as is attested by the inscription on that shield. (3) After that time I excelled all in authority, but I had no more official power than other men who were my colleagues in each magistracy.

Augustus here describes his honours in careful detail. By contrast, on both the transfer of power and his subsequent position he writes tersely and shows a masterly economy with the truth. One important point must be noted straightaway : Augustus regards the transfer of power not as a single act but as a process extending over his sixth and seventh consulships (that is, 28 and 27 BC).

The honours conferred in 27 came to serve a symbols of Augustus' special position in the state. They are well attested in the literary sources, and widely commemorated on the coinage and in art. Calendrical sources give dates for their conferment. The oak crown 'for saving citizens' was granted on 13 January, according to the Fasti of Praeneste. It is usually supposed that the name Augustus was conferred on 16 January, but in fact only the Praeneste Fasti give that date. Ovid (Fasti 1.590) gives the date as 13 January, the Feriale of Cumae as 15 January, Censorinus (de die natali 21.8) as 17 January.72 However this puzzle is to be resolved, it is clear that the senate began on 13 January 27 bc to confer honours on Octavian for his transfer of power, so that the process of transferring power must have been completed on or before that date.

Ovid (Fasti 1.589) tells us that on 13 January 'every province was restored to our people' (reddita est omnis populo prouincia nostro). If this is correct, we may conclude that the transfer of power was completed on that day in 27 bc by the restoration of the provinces. Like Augustus himself in the Res Gestae , Ovid makes no reference to the fact that he subsequently agreed to retain a share of the provinces.

Several annalistic histories were composed under Augustus or his immediate successors which gave detailed accounts of some or all of his reign, but these have left hardly any trace, except indirectly as the largely unacknowledged sources of various extant writers. All that survives of their accounts of the settlement of 28-27 is the summary of Livy's treatment in the Periocha of Book 134:

72 C. J. Simpson, ' Reddita omnis prouincia: ratification by the People in January, 27 bc', in C. Deroux (ed.), Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History , vol. 7 (Brussels, 1994), pp. 297-309, calls attention to the discrepancy. For the Praeneste Fasti and the Feriale of Cumae see A. Degrassi, Inscr. Ita. vol. 13.2 (Rome, 1963), pp. 112-15, 279, 396-400. However, although Degrassi gives the reading of the Cumae Feriale as '[XV] II K. FEBR' (i.e. 16 January), the correct reading is '[XV1III K. FEBR', as earlier editors recognized (e.g. Mommsen, CIL I2, pp. 229, 307) and is clearly visible from Degrassi's photograph (pl. LXXIV). For the honours of January 27 see also nn. 11, 40 above.




C. Caesar rebus compositis et omnibus prouinciis in certam formam redactis Augustus quoque cognominatus est .

When Gaius Caesar had re-established order and organized all the provinces on a definite pattern, he was also given the name Augustus.

The statement about the organization of the provinces appears to refer to the division of the provinces and the consequent arrangements which were made about their administration. There is no explicit reference here to Augustus' surrender of extraordinary powers, but that does not, of course, entitle us to infer that Livy himself failed to mention it.73

Rather more surprising is the absence of any mention of the transfer of power in the brief narrative of that devoted partisan of the regime, Vellerns Paterculus, who contents himself with a fervent paean to the restoration of republican ways after the civil war ended, in a passage which is both chronologically vague and avoids any reference to Augustus' own powers (2.89.3-4):

finita uicesimo anno bella ciuilia, sepulta externa , reuocata pax , sopitus ubique armorum furor ; restituía uis legibus , iudiciis auctoritas , senatui maiestas ; impérium magistr atuum ad pristinum redactum modum ( tantummodo octo praetoribus adiecti duo) ; prisca illa et antiqua rei publicae forma reuocata. rediit cultus agris , sacris honos , securitas hominibus , certa cuique rerum suarum possessio ; leges emendatae utiliter, latae salubriter ; senātus sine asperitate nec sine severitate lectus.

The civil wars were ended after twenty years, foreign wars suppressed, peace restored, the frenzy of arms everywhere lulled to rest; validity was restored to the laws, authority to the courts, and majesty to the senate; the power of the magistrates was reduced to its former limit, with the sole exception that two were added to the eight existing praetors; the old traditional form of the republic was brought back. Cultivation returned to the fields, respect to religious rites, security to mankind, and to each individual assured possession of his property. Laws were revised for the better, and new laws passed to the general advantage. The membership of the senate was reviewed without harshness, but not without strictness.

There are veiled allusions here to the adjustment of Octavian/ Augustus' powers, as we shall see, but the reference is also wider, for example to his censorial activity.

Later writers had no doubt that the regime established by Augustus was monarchical, and accordingly, with one conspicuous exception, they show little interest in the settlement of 28-27. Thus Suetonius claims that Octavian thought about handing back the republic {de reddenda re publica) after the defeat of Antony and again during his illness of 23 bc but decided against it, and elsewhere merely supplies separate notices of his assumption of the name

73 The use of the praenomen 'Gaius' is odd, since Octavian had replaced it with 'Imperator' in 38 (above, n. 7).




Augustus and of the division of the provinces.74 At the start of his Annals Tacitus articulates the political realities with lapidary concision: cuncta discordiis ciuilibus fessa nomine principis sub impérium accepit (1.1.1: 4 Augustus accepted the rule of the whole state, which was exhausted by civil discords, under the name of leading citizen'). In the following chapter Tacitus maintains that Augustus came to engross all the functions of state. This view is conveyed in a huge periodic sentence, in the course of which Augustus' tenure of the consulship is elided with the tribunician power with which he replaced it in 23 (1.2.1 posito triumuiri nomine consulem se fer ens et ad tuendam plebem tribunicio iure contentum , 'having laid down the title of triumvir he presented himself as consul and as contented with the tribunician power for protecting the people').75

Only Cassius Dio gives a detailed account of Octavian's surrender of his extraordinary powers and the ensuing settlement.76 Of necessity his account forms the principal basis of all modern reconstructions. It is a remarkable achievement. The extent of Dio's debt to earlier sources (principally annalistic histories) can only be conjectured, but in structure, tone and the assembling of material the account is likely to be largely his own work. Although not without its crudities, it is a vivid and perceptive piece of historical interpretation from a writer of considerable intelligence and originality. But therein lies the rub. It has long been clear that Dio in some respects distorted the events to fit his preconceptions. It will be argued below that the new evidence of the aureus shows that the extent of his distortion is considerably greater than has so far been suspected.

Although he wrote two centuries later, the political system under which Dio lived was essentially the one which Augustus had created. He therefore rightly gave the transition from the republican system to the monarchy of the emperors a central and dominant place in his history. He treated the period in which the change was accomplished in much greater detail than the rest of Roman history, and he used the change to shape the structure of the whole work : the first forty books deal with Rome under the kings and the Republic, Books 41-50 with the transitional years 49-31 bc, and the remaining thirty books with the emperors.

Dio ended his ten books on the civil wars with Actium, the decisive moment at which Octavian achieved sole rule.77 However, under the years

74 Suet. Aug. 1.2 , 28.1, 47. 75 At Ann. 1.9.5 Tacitus gives a formulation which shows more respect for the façade: 'non regno tarnen ñeque dictatura, sed principis nomine constitutam rem publicam'. But here he is not speaking in his own person, but presenting the view of those sympathetic to the regime. 76 On Dio's treatment of the settlement see further Rich, Cassius Dio , pp. 13ff., 134ff. See also F. G. B. Millar, A Study of Cassius Dio (Oxford, 1962), pp. 98ff.; E. Noè, Commento storico a Cassio Dione LIII ( Como, 1994), pp. llff., 59ff. 77 Actium as the start of monarchy: Dio 50.1.2, 51.1.1, 56.30.5. Elsewhere he speaks of the 29 debate (52.1.1) or the settlement of 27 (53.17.1, 19.1) as the turning point, but these are trifling




29-27, he gives a lengthy account of the way in which Octavian shaped his new monarchy. This account comprises two extended episodes, joined by a brief link passage. The first of these episodes is the celebrated debate between Agrippa and Maecenas (52.1-41.2). Here Dio exploited the tradition that Octavian considered giving up power (also recorded, as we have seen, by Suetonius, but certainly false) as the pretext for two lengthy speeches of his own invention. These serve a multiple purpose: Dio used them to analyse the problems facing the first emperor and the imperial system as it evolved under him and his successors, and also took the opportunity to advance his (Dio's) own ideas for reform. The debate concludes with Octavian's decision to retain the monarchy, as 'Maecenas' had recommended. Next comes the linking passage, which consists of notices of some events of 29 (52.41.3-43.2) additional to those reported earlier (51.20-27), followed by a brief account of Octavian's activity at Rome in 28 (53.1.1-2.5). This leads into the second extended episode, which deals with Octavian's resignation of his extraordinary powers and the resulting division of the provinces and takes up the greater part of Dio's account of the year 27 (53.2.6-22.5).

In this second episode, as in much of his work, Dio lays stress on the contrast between men's pretences and the realities of power. Here, as elsewhere, he owes much to Thucydides, his principal stylistic exemplar. Octavian's resignation was, he repeatedly assures us, a sham, designed to secure men's apparently free consent to the continuation of his monarchy (53.2.6, 11, 21.1). By agreeing to rule only a portion of the provinces and that only for a limited period, Octavian sought to seem 'democratic' (which for Dio meant 'republican') and to avoid the appearance of monarchy, but in reality his power remained absolute and permanent (53.12.1, 13.1, 16.1, 17.1). None of this is to be taken as implying disapproval of Octavian's conduct. Dio was seeking to discharge the historian's duty of exposing the truth about men's actions, but both here and elsewhere he goes out of his way to assert that monarchy was the best form of government for Rome (53.19.1 ; cf. 44.1-2, 47.39.4-5, 54.6.1, 56.44.2).

In his seventh consulship (27 bc), Octavian, so Dio informs us, entered the senate and read a speech in which he resigned all his extraordinary powers (53.2.6-7). Dio supplies a speech of his own composition, a splendid piece of sustained ironic writing (53.3-10). Dio then gives an elaborately wrought account of the senators' reactions : for a variety of motives, all protested and begged him to accept monarchy, as he had intended (53.11.1-4). Eventually he yielded, pretending to do so under compulsion (53.11.4-5). However, as regards the provinces, he agreed only to accept those which were insecure for a period of ten years, on the pretext of pacifying them but in reality in order

anomalies and best seen as the product of loose writing rather than deriving from different sources (Rich, Cassius Dio , p. 14).




to maintain his control of the army (53.12.1-3, 13.1). Dio now introduces digressions on the division of the provinces (53.12.4-9) and their administration under Augustus and his successors (53.13.2-15.6). After remarking on the periodic renewals of the division of the provinces throughout Augustus's reign, Dio passes to the honours conferred on him in connection with the settlement (53.16). Next come further digressions on the nature of the monarchical system of the emperors which the settlement had inaugurated (53.17-19). The narrative of the year is then resumed (53.20), but interrupted by yet another excursus, on Augustus' methods of government in this and subsequent years (53.21). This elaborate structure, with its numerous digressions, thus allows Dio's account of the year 27 to serve as an introduction both to Augustus' reign and to the imperial period as a whole, and to bring out how the events of that year had shaped the system of government under which he still lived.

In various respects Dio has distorted the facts to heighten his picture of the events of the year as an elaborately staged charade. When writing of the aftermath of the resignation he conveys the impression that Octavian overtly accepted autocracy, albeit with feigned reluctance (53.11.4-12.1). Here he has expressed himself too crudely: as his subsequent insistence on Octavian's wish to appear 'democratic' shows, he should have limited himself to claiming that Octavian accepted a position which, whatever the appearance, was in reality monarchic. The doubling of the praetorians' pay was probably enacted in connection with the division of the provinces, but Dio mentions it first, as evidence of Octavian's hypocrisy (53.11.5). He implies that all the armies were stationed in the emperor's provinces, but in fact between five and eight legions were initially stationed in the public provinces.78

One aspect of Dio's account to which little attention has been paid is what it implies about the timing of Octavian's surrender of his extraordinary powers. Dio represents the surrender as a single comprehensive act, carried out by a speech in the senate in 27. On the face of it, this conflicts with Augustus' own account at RG 34.1, where, as we have seen, the surrender is represented as taking place in 28 as well as 27, and thus as an extended process rather than a single act. However, in his account of the year 28 Dio mentions certain acts of Octavian by which he reverted to traditional custom and legality. It is evident that these measures must be at least part of what Augustus had in mind in his reference to the year 28, and so it is usually held that this enables the apparent conflict to be resolved.

We must now look more closely at Dio's account of the year 28, which is exclusively devoted to Octavian's activities at Rome and is very brief. The annalistic historians who formed Dio's principal sources must have narrated the year in substantially greater detail. As for many of his later year-

78 Dio 53.12.3; Rich, Cassius Dio , 140, with further bibliography.




narratives for Augustus' reign, Dio here selected from and compressed what he found in his source or sources.79 In this case he had a particular motive for brevity: as we have seen, this year-narrative formed part of a bridge- passage between two more extended episodes, from which he will not have wished the reader's attention to be unduly distracted.

Dio often sought to make thematic links between items to improve the flow of his narrative, and his account of the year 28 is a notable example of thematic organization. Little or no account appears to be taken of the chronological sequence of events.80 The material is arranged in what is in effect a ring-composition. At the centre come various acts of munificence by Octavian (53.2.1-3). These are framed by and linked to various religion measures: the dedication of the temple of Apollo Palatinus and the first Actian games (53.1.3-6), and the banning of Egyptian rites and restoration of the temples (53.2.4-5). These in turn are framed by opening and closing notices of ways in which Octavian reverted to ancestral custom and legality (53.1.1-3, 2.5), and from the last of these Dio leads in to Octavian's feigned resignation in the following year (53.2.6-7).

Dio opens his account of the year 28 by informing us that Octavian observed traditional practice in alternating the fasces monthly with Agrippa, his colleague as consul in this, as in the following year (53.1.1). In the preceding years, it would seem, his lictors had continued to carry fasces throughout the year.81 That this adherence to the principle of collegiality should itself be seen as part of the transfer of extraordinary powers is clear from RG 34.3, where Augustus declares that after the transfer he had no more potestas than his colleagues in each magistracy.82

Dio immediately adds, as a further instance of his observance of tradition, that Octavian took the customary oath at the end of the year. The full significance of this becomes clear when the terms of the oath are considered : the outgoing magistrate swore that he had done nothing contrary to the laws.83 In his sixth consulship, then, Octavian undertook to have observed

79 On Dio's use of his annalistic sources for Augustus' reign see Rich, Cassius Dio , pp. 7-10; P. M. Swan, ' Cassius Dio on Augustus : a poverty of annalistic sources?', Phoenix 41 (1987), pp. 272-91, and 'How Cassius Dio composed his Augustan books: four studies', ANRW 2.34.3 (1997), pp. 2524-57.

Thus Octavian's end-of-year oath is mentioned at the outset (53.1.1) and the dedication of the temple of Apollo, which in fact took place on 9 October ( Inscr . Ital. vol. 13.2, p. 518), is mentioned early (53.1.3). 81 On the practice of alternating the fasces between the consuls see further Rich, Cassius Dio , p. 132; Noè, Commento , pp. 60-1. 82 Compare also Vellerns' reference (2.89.3) to the reduction of the impérium of the magistrates to its former limit. 83 Pliny, Paneg. 65.2: 'et abiturus iurasti te nihil contra leges fecisse'. Cf. Livy 29.37.12; Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (n. 49a), vol. 1, p. 625; Kunkel, Staatsordnung (n. 49a), p. 253.




the laws, but in previous years he had been unwilling or unable to give such a guarantee.

The final item in Dio's account of the year 28 reads as follows (53.2.5):

€7T€ihr¡ re 7 roAÀà irávv /cará re ras ordoeis Kav toìs noXefjuois , ãÀÀcoç re k al kv rfj tov yAvTO)VLOV TOV T€ AcTTlSoV OVVdpX IÇ, KCU aVOļJLOJS Kdì 0l8lK(X)S €T€T(íx€l, TT¿.VTa CL VTŪ St* €VOÇ TTpOypáfJLfJLCLTOS KOLT€ÁVO€V, OpOV T7JV €KT7]V CLVTOV VTTOLT€¿aV TTpodcLS .

7 TpoQeís Reiske : npoodeis MSS.

Since he had put into effect many illegal and unjust measures during the period of civil strife and wars, especially in his joint rule with Antony and Lepidus, he now annulled them all by a single edict, fixing his sixth consulship as the limit.

This measure happens to be mentioned also by Tacitus in his survey of the development of Roman laws (Ann. 3.28.1-2): exim continua per uiginti annos discordia , non mos , non ius ; deterrima quaeque impune ac multa honesta exitio fuere, sexto demum consulatu Caesar Augustus , potentiae securus , quae triumuiratu iusserat aboleuit deditque iura quis pace et principe uteremur. Then for twenty years there was continual discord, no morality, no law. Criminality went unpunished, decency was often fatal. Finally, in his sixth consulship, Caesar Augustus, secure in his power, cancelled the orders he had issued in his triumvirate, and gave the laws which we were to use under peace and the princeps. Dio's formulation of what was being annulled is to be preferred to Tacitus' : the edict covered not all of Octavian's ordinances, but such of them as were illegal and unjust. It is to be noted that it did not deal with the acts of Antony and Lepidus, but only those of Octavian.84 At the start of 29 the senators had ratified all his acts by oath (Dio 51.20.1); now this ratification was partially cancelled. How the annulment was to be implemented may only be conjectured. It may be that, as Gray suggested, a limited period was allowed for appeal against Octavian's decisions.85 However, it is perhaps more likely that the annulment was a mere declaration, with no provisions for implementation, and had little practical effect. At any rate, Dio's statement that Octavian's sixth consulship was set as the limit should not be taken, as by Gray, as indicating that appeals were allowed until the end of 28. The meaning is rather that the period of illegal acts extended down to the year 29 : as we have seen, Octavian claimed on oath that he had not contravened the laws during 28.86

We are now at last in a position to return to the new aureus of 28 bc. 84 The measure will not have been wide enough to satisfy the jurist Cascellius, who regarded

all the triumvirs' benefactions as illegal (Val. Max. 6.2.12). E. W. Gray, Gnomon 33 (1961), p. 193, citing Pliny, Ep. 10.56.4. P. Grenade, Essai sur les origines du principát (Paris, 1961), constructs elaborate hypotheses

about the significance of the year 28 bc in the evolution of the Principáte partly on the basis of the annulment edict. However, his principal contentions are unfounded : see the critical review by P. A. Brunt, JRS 51 (1961), pp. 236-8.




Octavian's observance of the laws during that year and his edict annulling his past illegal and unjust acts are clearly at least part of what was envisaged in the legend's claim that 'he has restored their laws and rights to the Roman people'. It is possible that the reverse type depicts the issuing of the edict: as was noted above, the implication may be that the scroll held by Octavian contained an edict which a praeco was about to read out. It would have been in accord with its usual practice for the senate to respond to such an edict with a decree in Octavian's honour, and Dio himself tells us that it won him approbation and praise.87 If, as argued above, the reverse type and legend of the aureus and the title LIBERTATIS P R VINDEX accorded him on the PAX cistophori derive from a decree of the senate in his honour, the proclamation of the annulment edict is the most likely occasion to have prompted this decree. Moreover, the claim made on the aureus legend may well derive from the annulment edict itself.

Dio's evidence thus helps to elucidate the aureus. However, this does not mean that the coin saves Dio's credit. On the contrary, it enables us to see how the surrender of Octavian's extraordinary powers has been distorted in his account.

The coin legend agrees well with Augustus' statement at RG 34.1 that the transfer of power took place over his sixth and seventh consulships, and, when taken together with the evidence of Dio and Ovid, it makes clear how the transfer was staged: their laws and rights were restored to the Roman people in 28, and the armies and provinces on 13 January 27. However, as we saw above, Dio does not conceive of Octavian's surrender of his extraordinary powers as a staged process, but represents it as a single comprehensive act taking place in 27. The point may be clarified by considering the three passages in the resignation speech which Dio composed for Octavian where he makes the ruler specify what he is handing back. In all three passages he names the armies and the provinces, but in two he also includes the laws and in one he adds the revenues as well.88 Thus Dio represents Octavian as returning the laws along with his other extraordinary powers in 27. This is in direct conflict with the claim of the aureus that Octavian restored the laws in 28. The aureus is contemporary with the events and may be taken as a reliable witness for the way in which they were represented to the Roman public. Indeed, as argued above, its formulation may derive from a decree of the senate passed in 28 and ultimately perhaps from Octavian's own words in the annulment edict. Moreover, it is in accord with Augustus' own statement in the Res Gestae . The evidence of the aureus is thus unquestionably to be preferred to that of Dio.

87 DÌO 53.2.6: €v8okl¡jlwv re ovv em rovrois Kal €7t<ilvov¡jl€vos . . . 88 DÌO 53.4.3 ra oirXa rovç vófiovç ra eOvrj, 5.4 Kal rà ÕttXcl kūli ra côvrj rà VTrr¡Koa, 9.6 Kal rà 07rAa

Kal rà €0vr¡ ras re irpooóSovs Kal rovs voļiovs • Compare also 52.13.1, where Dio represents Agrippa as urging Octavian to restore to the people Kal rà õnXa Kal rà ¡¡dm j Kal ras àp'às Kal rà xPWa Ta-




How Dio came to misrepresent the completion of the transfer of power in January 27 as a single comprehensive act of surrender can only be conjectured. To some extent the distortion may already have been present in one or more of his sources. A part may have been played by Dio's method of work, which appears to have consisted mainly of taking notes from his reading and writing them up at a later stage.89 However, it is clear that the distortion served his interpretation: he wished to present Octavian's surrender of power as a sham, and his presentation of it as a single act which was immediately revoked heightened this impression. It should also be noted that his treatment of the annulment edict forms part of this overall interpretation. He reports its proclamation at the end of his account of the year 28 and then says that the approval with which it was received led Octavian to carry out the feigned resignation (53.2.5-6). As so often in his work, Dio himself probably made this causal connection. His report cannot be taken as evidence that the annulment proclamation was made late in the year.

Thus the new evidence of the aureus shows that Augustus' statement in the Res Gestae that the transfer of power took place in his sixth and seventh consulship cannot, as has generally been supposed, be reconciled with Dio's picture of the transfer as a single comprehensive act taking place in 27. The two views are in conflict, and Dio's must be rejected. The transfer was a staged process lasting over two years, and the surrender of the armies and provinces on 13 January 27 was merely the final act.

Now that the staged character of the transfer of power has been made clear, we must consider whether there were other elements which were returned by Octavian in 28, and, if so, whether they too were included in the scope of the aureus legend. As was noted above, the term iura in the legend is ambiguous: it may simply be a virtual synonym for leges , but alternatively it may extend to include other rights restored to the Roman people.

Dio (53.2.1) records measures taken by Octavian in 28 relating to the treasury {aerarium) : he assisted it with a gift of money, and it was ordained that ex-praetors should be chosen every year to administer it, evidently in the hope that more senior appointees would be more effective than the quaestors who had traditionally performed this task. A little later Dio reports that sureties given to the treasury before Actium were discharged and the old records of debt burnt (53.2. 3).90 (This measure and the appointment of ex-

89 J. W. Rich, 'Dio on Augustus', in A. Cameron (ed.), History as Text (London, 1989), pp. 87-110, at pp. 89-92, and Cassius Dio, pp. 5-7. 90 On these notices see E. Noè, 'Nota a Cassio Dione, LIII, 2', Athenaeum 78 (1990), pp. 65-76. For this and later subventions to the treasury by Octavian/ Augustus see RG 17.1 ; RIC 360-2. For the administration of the treasury, transferred in 23 to two praetors, see Suet. Aug. 36; Tac. Ann. 13.29; Dio 53.32.2; M. Corbier, V Aerarium Saturni et V Aerarium Militare : administration et prosopographie sénatoriale (Rome, 1974), pp. 637-9.




praetors are represented by Dio as personal decisions of Octavian; no doubt they were in fact enacted at his initiative, but by decree of the senate.)91 It seems likely that these various measures formed part of a comprehensive reform of the treasury which was represented as returning it to the Roman senate and people.92 As with the laws, Dio has suppressed this for his own reasons: he represents the 'revenues' as one of the elements surrendered by Octavian in his resignation speech of 27, and later insists that there was in reality no difference between the public funds and those of the emperor.93

The triumvirs, as we have seen, nominated the magistrates, although the assembly doubtless met to confirm the names put before them. Once he became sole ruler, Octavian will have continued to exercise this power at least until 29. It was, however, flagrantly incompatible with republican forms, and an important element in the settlement of 28-27 was thus the restoration of free elections by the popular assembly. It is usually supposed that the first such free elections were held in 27. This assumption is a consequence of the view, based on Dio's account, that Octavian made a comprehensive surrender of his extraordinary powers on 13 January 27. Confirmation has been found in the remarks on the workings of the electoral assemblies under Augustus which Dio makes later in his account of the year 27 (53.21.6-7). However, that passage occurs not in the narrative of the events of the year, but in an excursus on Augustus' method of government (53.21), and so no inferences can safely be drawn from it on the date when this and other innovations were made. It is in fact more likely that free elections were resumed in 28 than in 27. It would have been wholly anomalous if, in that year, while proclaiming the restoration of laws and rights to the Roman people, Octavian had once again nominated the incoming magistrates. The right to elect the magistrates may thus be included in the powers which Octavian restored to the people in 28. Moreover, this may well be one of the iura envisaged in the aureus legend. It is noteworthy that Suetonius used the word ius in his notice of the restoration of free elections : comitiorum quoque pristinum ius reduxit {Aug. 40.2: 'he revived the old right of elections').94

91 P. A. Brunt, 'The role of the senate in the Augustan regime', CQ 34 (1984), pp. 423-44, at p. 437. As Brunt shows, Dio and Suetonius often represent measures which were in fact passed through the senate as personal ordinances of Augustus. 92 So already A. Bay, 'The letters SC on Augustan coinage', JRS 62 (1972), pp. 111-22, at p. 120; Lacey, Augustus and the Principáte (n. 2), pp. 86, 91.

'Revenues surrendered m 27: Dio 53.9.6, cited above, n. 88; cf. 52.13.1 (also cited there): rà xPWa™ ('the funds') among the items which Agrippa urges Octavian to restore. No real difference between the public funds and the emperor's: Dio 53.16.1, 22.2-4.

94 Dio's statement (53.2.3) that Octavian appointed the praetor urbanus in 28 is not a difficulty for the view that free elections were restored in that year. The reference is not to the mode of election, but simply to the assignment of the urbana prouincia : when the praetors for 28 entered office and drew lots for their judicial functions for the year, one of them will have been appointed praetor urbanus without having to go through the ballot, probably by a decree of the senate passed on Octavian's initiative (Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht (n. 49a), vol. 2, p. 215 n. 3;




The lower magistrates for 27 were thus probably chosen at free elections held in 28. The same cannot have been true for the consulship, since Octavian and Agrippa, the consuls of 28, continued to hold the office in the following year, evidently without a contest. This continuation, in such apparent conflict with the return to republican forms, was surely procured by some special device, perhaps a decree of the senate, backed up by some form of expression of the popular wish, begging the consuls to continue in office to superintend the process of reform.

In other ways too the magistracies were brought back into conformity with republican forms during Octavian/ Augustus' stay in Rome in 29-27. The number of magistrates elected was reduced to pre-civil war levels, and suffect consuls ceased to be appointed (both these principles were to be abandoned later in Augustus' reign). These reforms would not have required legislation, but, although no source refers to it directly, it is clear that a new lex annalis must have been passed, since under Augustus and his successors the rules regulating the ages at which magistracies might be held were significantly different from those which had been in force in the late Republic.95 The most likely occasion for this law was in 28, when Octavian restored free elections.

The restoration of leges et iura meant, in fact, not only the revival of old laws but the passing of new ones. So much is implied by Tacitus, who, after referring to the annulment of Octavian's triumviral acts in 28, goes on to state that in the same year 'he gave the laws which we were to use under peace and the princeps

' (. Ann 3.28.2: deditque iura quis pace et principe

uteremur). What further laws were passed in that year, whether on other topics or arising out of the transfer of powers, is a matter for conjecture. It is, for example, likely that some of the new measures taken in respect of the treasury in 28 were ratified by a law: the institution of new magistracies had customarily required the assembly's sanction, and it is unlikely that in 28, when he was so scrupulous about legality, Octavian would have omitted to get the assembly's approval for the transfer of the treasury to prefects of praetorian rank.96

Augustus later showed himself scrupulous in consulting the senate about

Brunt, 'The role of the senate', p. 430). The appointment may perhaps be associated with the revival of traditional judicial procedures implied by the restoration of leges et iura : so Lacey, Augustus and the Principáte , p. 84. 95 Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht , vol. 1, pp. 572-7; J. Morris, 'Leges Annales under the Principáte,' Listy Filologické 87 (1964), pp. 316-37, and 88 (1965), pp. 22-31 ; R. J. A. Talbert, The Senate of Imperial Rome (Princeton, 1984), pp. 17-18. Dio alludes to these rules indirectly in the speech of Maecenas: 52.20.1-2. 96 For laws instituting magistracies see Mommsen, Römisches Staatsrecht , vol. 2, pp. 613ff., vol. 3, p. 330. It has often been inferred from Prop. 2.7.1-3 that Octavian attempted unsuccessfully to legislate on marriage and child-rearing c.28, but see the rebuttal of E. Badian, 'A phantom marriage law', Philologus 129 (1985), pp. 82-98. Both the new lex annalis and the rules introduced in 27 for the ballot for proconsulships rewarded those with children: Dio 53.13.2; Morris, 'Leges Annales', p. 317.




his legislative proposals, particularly when they closely affected the senators themselves, as the new lex annalis did. His chief vehicle for such consultations was the consilium which he established, manned mainly by magistrates and senators selected by lot.97 The date when this consilium was instituted is uncertain. Dio mentions it in the excursus on Augustus' government which he included in his account of the year 27 (53.21.4), but, as we noted above, no conclusions can be drawn from this excursus about when the procedures described there were instituted. One possible occasion for the institution of the consilium is the social legislation of 19-18 bc. However, another, perhaps more likely, occasion is 28 bc. In that case the initial task of the consilium would have been to help in the preparation of the volume of legislation made necessary by the return to republican forms and the restoration of leges et iura.

Thus in the course of the year 28 Octavian carried out a wide range of measures, all of which formed part of the restoration of his extraordinary powers to the senate and people. The laws were strictly observed, and, from February, he alternated the fasces with his colleague. At some point he declared the annulment of his past illegal and unjust acts, perhaps coupling it with a more general proclamation of the restoration of their laws and rights to the Roman people. Free elections were restored, the treasury was reformed, and, to implement these various changes, a number of laws were carried. The thematic character of Dio's account of the year makes it impossible to establish a chronology for these events, but the annulment declaration is likely to have been made quite early in the year. As was its way, the senate is likely to have responded to this proclamation with a decree in Octavian's honour, and, as argued above, it was from this decree that the reverse type and legend of the aureus and the title LIBERT ATIS P R VINDEX accorded him on the PAX cistophori probably derive.

All that remained for the following year was for Octavian to conclude the process of surrendering his extraordinary powers by returning the armies and the provinces. This transaction took place at the senate meeting held (if Ovid is correct) on 13 January 27. For what transpired at that meeting we are still dependent on Dio. The core of his narrative - that Octavian made a speech of resignation which was greeted by protests and led in due course to a compromise by which he retained some of his powers - probably stood in his source (or sources) and may be accepted. The resignation speech will not just have been concerned with the surrender of the armies and provinces, but will have represented that as completing the transfer of the res publica the rest of which had been carried out the previous year: this much may be inferred

97 For Augustus' special consultation of senators on matters closely affecting them by inviting proposals and amendments in writing see Dio 55.4.1, 25.4-5; 56.28.4-6. On the consilium see Suet. Aug. 35.3; J. A. Crook, Consilium Principis (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 8-20; Brunt, 'The role of the senate', pp. 428, 443.




from Augustus' statement at RG 34.1-2, where the ensuing honours are said to have been conferred in recognition of the transfer of the res publica." As for the protests and the resulting compromise, Dio must be right that these had been planned by Octavian and perhaps stage-managed: he cannot have intended his transfer of the armies and provinces to be accepted in full, since this would have ended the control over the armies on which his power ultimately rested.

On the timing of the compromise and the honours we are inadequately informed: as noted above, we are told only that the oak or civic crown was conferred on 13 January 27, and the name Augustus on a date variously given as 13, 15, 16 or 17 January. Dio's account perhaps suggests that the compromise by which the provinces were divided was made at the initial meeting, but this cannot be pressed. A different impression is conveyed in his later account of the honours, where he tells us that the oak crown and the laurels were conferred 'when the resignation of the monarchy and the division of the provinces were under discussion' and the name Augustus 'when he had put these matters into effect'.99 This may suggest that Octavian made a parade of reluctance by allowing matters to remain in abeyance at the meeting on 13 January and only consented to accept the compromise agreement at a later meeting of the senate. If so, the name Augustus may have been conferred at the session at which the compromise was agreed. Public business could not be transacted on 14 January, which was Antony's birthday and so had been declared a dies uitiosus. If the rules were strictly observed, the second session must have been held on 15 January, since the days from 16 January on were comitiales and thus not available for senate meetings under the Lex Pupia.100

98 The view of Lacey, Augustus and the Principáte , pp. 77-99, that procedurally Octavian limited himself to putting the consular provinces to the senate for allocation, is unacceptable. The allocation of provinces could not be discussed until new principles had been established to determine eligibility for provinces, and this itself only took place after the division of the provinces had been agreed (see below). 99 DÌO 53.16.4, 6: ore ra 7 repi rrjs eÇcjfjLoaías rrjs fiovapx^CLS Kal ra nepl rrjs twv èOvwv Si avofirjs SieÀcy 07) . . . €7T€L 8k Kdi TO) €py(i) ŪVTŪ €7T€T€Á€(J€V . . . 100 See Lacey, Augustus and the Principáte , pp. 88-9, 92-3; Simpson, ' Reddita omnis prouincia ' (n. 72). For the status of the days 13-17 January see Inscr. Ital. vol. 13.2, pp. 396-401. 13 and 15 January both carried the designation NP (perhaps standing for nefastus publicus ), the former as the Ides, the latter as the festival of the Carmentalia. Senate meetings could be held all day on NP days ( pace Lacey, Simpson) : see M . Bonnefond-Coudry, Le sénat de la république romaine de la guerre ď Hannibal à Auguste (Rome, 1989), pp. 220-1. The implications of the Lex Pupia for the proceedings in 27 have generally been disregarded. For its prohibition on senate meetings from 16 January to the end of the pre-Julian month see Cic. QF 2.2.3, F am. 1.4.1 ; for full discussion of the law see Bonnefond-Coudry, Sénat , pp. 229-56. As Bonnefond-Coudry argues, it is most plausibly interpreted as forbidding senate meetings on all dies comitiales. This rule was sometimes disregarded in the Ciceronian period, but for the sessions in January 27 to have extended to dies comitiales would have sat ill with the claim that the laws were now being strictly observed. The rule that senatorial decisions taken on unpermitted days were to rank only as auctoritates , incorporated in the measure on senatorial procedure passed in 9 bc (Dio 55.3.5),




As in the previous year, legislation would have been required to implement these arrangements. The grant of a share of the provinces for ten years to Augustus will have required approval by a law.101 The same will have been true of the arrangements about provincial administration of which Dio gives us a sketch (53.13.2-15.6). The provisions relating to the government of Augustus' provinces may have been included in the law conferring his provinces, but a separate law will have been required to establish procedures for the allocation of the proconsulships of public provinces by ballot. As with the lex annalis , the new arrangements for the sortition were not simply a reversion to republican practice: the new system was in outline that introduced by Pompey in 52 (with an interval between magistracy and promagistracy), but with modifications of detail.102

The new evidence of the aureus has thus enabled us to produce a reconstruction of the course of the settlement of 28-27 which is radically different from that generally held. It is usually supposed that in 28 Octavian merely took various preparatory steps and that on 13 January 27 he made a comprehensive resignation of his powers, followed immediately by a partial retraction. If the arguments advanced above are correct, the events of 13 January 27 were merely the final act in a staged process, of which the bulk had already taken place in 28. We must now consider the nature and significance of the settlement of 28-27 in the light of this new reconstruction of the course of events.

A RESTORED RES PUBLICAI

As Dio recognized, the true aim of the settlement of 28-27 was to legitimize the new regime by obtaining public assent for it and casting it in republican guise. In his eagerness to point up the contrast between appearance and reality, Dio presents Octavian's surrender of power as a single, comprehensive act, immediately revoked. In Dio's portrayal, the episode is a grotesque charade. Even in more sympathetic modern accounts,

is best taken as a re-assertion, in modified form, of the prohibition of senate meetings on dies comitiales (misinterpreted by Bonnefond-Coudry, Sénat , pp. 256-60, as applying to all meetings other than the regular sessions on the Kalends and the Ides instituted by that measure). Simpson, ' Reddita omnis prouincia' proposes to save Ovid's dating for the name Augustus with the hypothesis that it was decreed by the senate on 13 January and ratified by the people on 15 or 16 January (in fact an assembly could not have been held on 15 January, since it was not a comitial day). In view of Dio 53.16.4, we may accept that the laurels were voted at the same time as the oak crown, on 13 January. The date when the gold shield was decreed is unknown, but it was sureíy in 27, not 26 : COS VIH on the Aries copy of the shield (EJ 22) must be either an error or the date of its erection at Aries, contra W. Seston, 4 Le clipeus virtutis d'Arles et la composition des Res Gestae Divi Augusti ', CRAI 1954, pp. 286-97; Lacey, Augustus and the Principáte , pp. 93-4.

Cf. Dio. 53.12.1: ratification of Augustus' 'hegemony by senate and people. 102 On these arrangements see Rich, Cassius Dio , pp. 143-6, with further bibliography.




it remains a crude piece of play-acting, which could not have convinced anyone and might have repelled the more independent-minded. The trickery appears all the more gross because the armies and the provinces are held to be the most important issue and little account is taken of other elements in the transfer of power. Since in the event Augustus retained most of the military provinces, his sleight-of-hand becomes only too apparent.

Once it is recognized that much of the transfer process was carried out in 28 rather than 27, it becomes a less gross deception, and it is easier to see how contemporaries may have received it favourably and regarded it as a significant step back towards the old republican ways. The process covered all the elements of the res publica , domestic as well as military and external. The domestic aspects were for the most part dealt with in 28, with the restoration of the treasury and of the people's 'laws and rights', including the right to choose the magistrates. All these measures were accepted without demur. It was only when Octavian came to complete the process in 27 with the surrender of the armies and provinces that opposition was expressed (as he intended) and a compromise agreed.

As a presentational exercise the settlement thus appears more effective as it has been here re-interpreted. In reality, however, the changes were less substantial than was claimed. Despite Augustus' assertion in the Res Gestae (34.1) that he had 'acquired everything', the institutions of the republic were by no means wholly in abeyance in and after the triumviral period, while after the settlement his control continued to be all-pervasive. Due to the limitations in our knowledge, it is in many respects difficult to assess how much the changes amounted to in practice.

As has already been noted, it is uncertain how the annulment of Octavian' s 'illegal and unjust acts' was implemented or whether it had much practical effect. His alternating of the fasces and taking of the oath to have observed the laws were further striking gestures, but what practical changes, if any, in the workings of the laws and the administration of justice lay behind the vaunted restoration of leges et iura , it is impossible to say. One aspect which appears not to have been affected has been pointed out by Millar: Augustus as sole ruler seems to have exercised more routine personal jurisdiction than he or his colleagues had done as triumvir.103 The measures' importance was perhaps primarily symbolic: they marked the end of the illegalities and summary actions which had been the inevitable concomitants of civil war, and reaffirmed the supremacy of the laws and the validity of the people's rights.104 It is not surprising that Vellerns gives prominence to these aspects

103 Millar, 'Triumvirate and Principáte' (n. 62), pp. 59-61. In view of his claims at RG 34.3 and elsewhere, Augustus can never have accepted a

general exemption from the laws. Dio's assertion that he received such an exemption in 24 (53.28.2) is probably a misinterpretation of a specific dispensation from the law on ambitus. On the claim in the sixth clause of the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani ( ILS 244 = EJ 364 = Roman



206 J. W.RICH AND J. H. C.WILLIAMS

in his fervently partisan eulogy of the post-Actium settlement: 'validity was restored to the laws, authority to the courts, ... the power of the magistrates was reduced to its former limit' (2.89.3, cited above, p. 192).105 It is more striking that Tacitus, with his very different viewpoint, adopted the same interpretation, declaring that Octavian's actions in 28 bc marked the end of the twenty-year period in which there was non mos, non ius {Ann. 3.28.1-2, cited above, p. 197).

The public finances are another aspect of the changes which we are too poorly informed to assess. It is likely that the aerarium was better organized under Augustus and that he was more scrupulous in respecting its independence from 28 onwards than he and his colleagues had been as triumvirs. However, Dio's view that the distinction between the public treasury and the emperor's resources was essentially a formality was not excessively cynical.106

Significant change certainly did take place in the making of public appointments. Formerly Octavian and his fellow triumvirs had selected the magistrates and the provincial governors, but from 28 free election to the magistracies was restored and from 27 the proconsuls of the public provinces were selected by the lot, as under the Republic.

Access to the consulship was restricted down to 23 by Augustus' continued tenure. As in 28, he probably avoided the immodesty of declaring his candidature. All the elections for 26-23 were probably held in his absence, and the presiding officer may have secured his election as consul and then solicited his acceptance, which may sometimes have been given only after a show of reluctance.107 A similar procedure may have been followed at the elections for 21 and 19, but on those occasions Augustus persisted in his refusal.108 Of his colleagues, the great marshal T. Statilius Taurus, consul for the second time in 26, was surely unopposed, but in the following years some

Statutes (n. 2) 39) that Augustus and his successors enjoyed a general right to take such actions as they deemed to be ex usu rei publicae see P. A. Brunt, 'Lex de Imperio Vespasiani', JRS 67 (1977), pp. 95-116, at pp. 117-16; A. Pabst, in W. Dahlheim et al. (eds.), "'...ageret faceretque quaecumque e re publica censeret esse" : Annäherung an die lex de imperio Vespasiani', in W. Dahlheim et al. (eds), Festschrift Robert Werner (Konstanz, 1989), pp. 125-48; J. Crook, CAH2 vol. 10, pp. 118-20; Crawford, Roman Statutes , pp. 549-50. 105 Vellerns' obscure assertion that 'impérium magistratuum ad pristinum redactum modům' may refer both to the restriction of Octavian/ Augustus' magisterial impérium to the same level as that of his colleagues, evinced by his alternation of the fasces and asserted at RG 34.2, and to the reduction in the number of magistrates. The appended qualification, ' tantummodo octo praetoribus adiecti duo', is confused: the number of praetors was in fact brought down to the pre-civil war level of eight in 28/27, but raised to ten in 23 when two praetors were put in charge of the treasury (above, n. 90). 106 On the relationship between the aerarium and the emperor's funds see especially F. G. B. Millar, 'The Fiscus in the first two centuries', JRS 53 (1963), pp. 29-42, and The Emperor in the Roman World (London, 1977), pp. 189-201; P. A. Brunt, Roman Imperial Themes (Oxford, 1990), pp. 134-62, 347-53. 107 Veil. 2.89.4 may attest such displays of reluctance, but the text is unfortunately corrupt. 108 Dio 54.6.2-3, 10.1-2.




of those who shared the consulship with Augustus may have won their place by contest. From 22 on elections to the consulship were once again free, as the turbulence which followed Augustus' refusals in 21 and 19 confirms.

Augustus continued to play a part in the elections.109 Occasionally he resolved electoral turmoil by naming consuls (doubtless for subsequent confirmation by the assembly).110 He regularly gave his support to individual candidates in person or (after ad 8) in writing.111 This was justified on the specious ground that he was merely exercising the right enjoyed by every private citizen, but his support was, of course, a guarantee of success. We do not know how many candidates for the various magistracies enjoyed this favour, but it is likely that Augustus avoided excessive interference in the freedom of the elections by restricting his support to a minority of the candidates.112

The appointment of provincial governors presented Octavian/ Augustus with a particularly delicate problem. If his claim to have transferred the res publica was to have any substance, he could not continue to appoint the governors as before, but he could not surrender the choice of military commanders without jeopardizing the control of the army on which his power ultimately depended. The solution which he devised was one of characteristic brilliance. He transferred the provinces to senate and people, but made sure that there would be protests, and then, after a show of reluctance, consented to resume the bulk of the military provinces, claiming that this would be a temporary arrangement aimed at the pacification of those provinces and the peoples beyond their borders. This ingenious compromise permitted the resumption of sortition for the proconsuls of the public provinces, while Augustus continued to appoint the governors of his own provinces. Moreover, his position vis-à-vis these governors was strengthened: since they now ranked not as proconsuls, but merely as his legati , they were ineligible for imperatorial salutations and triumphs, and it was to Augustus, not their immediate commanders, that the troops swore allegiance.

Although the rhetoric outran the substance, the settlement of 28-27 did nonetheless lead to changes of some significance. The restoration of largely free elections and of sortition for the appointment of many provincial

109 On elections under Augustus see especially A. H. M. Jones, Studies in Roman Government and Law (Oxford, 1960), pp. 27-50; P. A. Brunt, 'The Lex Valeria Cornelia', JRS 51 (1961), pp. 71-83; B. M. Levick, 'The imperial control of the elections under the early Principáte: commendatio, suffragatio and "nominatio"', Historia 16 (1967), pp. 207-30; R. Frei-Stolba, Untersuchungen zu den Wahlen in der römischen Kaiserzeit (Zurich, 1967), pp. 87-129; A. J. Holladay, 'The election of magistrates in the early Principáte', Latomus 37 (1978), pp. 874-93. 110 Dio 54.10.2 (19 BC); 55.34.2 (ad 7). 111 Suet. Aug. 56.1; Veil. 2.124.4; Dio 53.21.7, 55.34.2. 112 In ad 14, when the elections were transferred to the senate on Augustus' death, Tiberius restricted his support to four candidates for twelve praetorships : Tac. Ann. 1.14.4-15.1.




governors, along with other changes, less easy to identify, in such areas as justice and finance, constituted to a not inconsiderable degree a reversion to republican ways. Along with other changes made during Octavian/ Augustus' stay in Rome in 29-27, such as the reduction in the size of the senate and the number of magistrates, these developments show that, although excessive, Vellerns' claim (2.89.4, cited above, p. 192) that the 'old, traditional form of the republic' had been brought back was by no means devoid of substance.

Did Augustus and his supporters claim that he had restored the republic? Many modern writers have supposed that they did, but in more recent treatments doubts have been expressed, notably by Millar and Judge.113 The evidence is scanty, and the issue is complicated by the range of meanings which can be borne by the terms res publica and restituere.

Res publica meant, as Cicero {Rep. 3.43) remarked, res populi , the common property of the Roman people. The term often approximates to our 'state', but, as Brunt observes, this word 'fails to convey the nuance in res publica of a community organized by and for the citizens, which is best rendered in English by the archaic word "commonwealth".'114 Res publica was thus generally held to be incompatible with regnum, and, when powerful individuals were dominant, Cicero was wont to lament that the res publica was afflicted, lost or non-existent.115 By a further extension of the same usage, later writers such as Tacitus could contrast the old res publica with the imperial system inaugurated by Augustus.116 Augustus himself, however, did not scruple to claim that the res publica had survived and prospered under his regime, as in the edict (of uncertain date) in which he expressed the hope that 'the foundations of the res publica which I have laid will remain unshaken' (mansura in uestigio suo fundamenta rei p. quae iecero ).117

The troubles of the civil war could undoubtedly be regarded as an affliction for the res publica , and so Augustus by his establishment of peace and stability could be perceived as restoring it to health and prosperity. This is the message conveyed by another relatively recently discovered, and also unique, aureus, struck at Rome, probably in 12 bc, by the moneyer Cossus Cornelius

113 F. G. B. Millar, 'Two Augustan notes', CR 18 (1968), pp. 263-6, and 'Triumvirate and Principáte' (n. 62), pp. 61-7; E. A. Judge, "'Res Publica Restituta". A modern illusion?', in J. A. S. Evans, Polis and Imperium: Studies in Honour of Edward Togo Salmon (Toronto, 1974), pp. 279-311. Note also Brunt's riposte in '"Augustus" e la "Respublica"' (n. 71) and the remarks of Mackie, ' Res Publica Restituta ' (n. 51), pp. 328-34. 114 Brunt, '"Augustus" e la "Respublica"', p. 238. On the term res publica see, besides this and the other works cited in the previous note, R. Stark, Res Publica (Göttingen, 1937 ; repr. in Oppermann, Römische Wertbegriffe [n. 57], pp. 42-110). 115 See C. Meier, Res Publica Amissa (Wiesbaden, 1966), pp. 1-3, with references. 1,6 E.g. Tac. Ann. 1.3.7, 4.19.3; Hist. 1.1, 50. 117 Suet, Aug. 28.2 (there is no ground for assigning this edict to 28 bc, with Grenade, Essai (n. 86), pp. 68ff.). Cf. Gell. 15.7.3, citing a letter of Augustus in which he looks forward to living out the rest of his days in statu reipublicae felicissimo and passing on his s tat io to C. Caesar.




Lentulus ( RIC 413; PL 20, 11). The reverse shows a togate standing figure extending his right hand to a female kneeling figure, and legends identify the standing figure as Augustus and the kneeling figure as the personified Res Publica.11* The configuration of this scene reappears on a range of later reverse types. On coins of Galba and Vespasian it is again used to symbolize the claimed restoration of liberty and prosperity after tyranny and civil war: the kneeling figure represents Liberty or Roma, identified by legends such as LIBERTAS RESTITVTA and ROMA RESVRGE(N)S.119 On coins of Trajan and still more Hadrian the emperor is shown raising personifications of Italy and the provinces from their knees, accompanied by legends such as RESTITVTORI ITALIAE.120

In the so-called Laudatio Turiae , an epitaph composed by an unknown man for his deceased wife ( ILS 8393 = EJ 357), the author introduces his account of their improved circumstances after the civil wars with the words pacato orbe terrarum , res[titut]a re publica (Col. II, 1.25: 'the world having been made peaceful, the res publica having been restored'). The precise meaning of the phrase restituía re publica here is uncertain. It could (like Lentulus' aureus) denote the restoration of an ailing res publica to health and prosperity. Alternatively, the implication may be that the res publica , suppressed under the arbitrary rule of the triumvirs, was now revived. It is, however, clear that the phrase makes a general reference to the return of stability and good order, both through the ending of civil war and through the reforms made during Octavian/ Augustus' stay in Rome in 29-27. Octavian's surrender of his extraordinary powers in 28-27 was part of that process, but it is unlikely that the author intended the phrase to refer particularly to that surrender.

This is the only place where rem publicam restituere is certainly used of Octavian/ Augustus, but this terminology has also been restored in a passage with a much more direct reference to the settlement of 28-27. The entry in the Fasti of Praeneste recording the conferment on Octavian of the oak crown on 13 January 27 also specifies the ground on which the grant was made. Unfortunately, only the left side of the entry survives, and the line- length is uncertain. In the usually accepted restoration, first proposed by Mommsen, the entry reads:121

118 See C. C. Vermeule, 'Un aureo augusteo del magistrato monetale Cossus Lentulus', Numismatica n.s. 1 (1960), pp. 1-7. Cf. also the obverse legend of a denarius of 16 bc (RIC 358), quoting a decree of the senate vowing games for Augustus' safe return on the grounds that per eu(m ) r(es) p(ublica) in ampQiore) atqiue) tran(guilliore) s(tatu) e(st) ('through him the res publica is in a more prosperous and peaceful condition'). 119 RIC Galba 479-80, 485, Vespasian 310, 407, 430, 445, 520, 735. Cf. Weinstock, Divus Julius (n. 1 1), p. 46. 120 RIC Trajan 105-6, 472-4; Hadrian 321-329, 568, 938-966. 121 CIL vol. I2, pp. 231, 307 = EJ 45 = Inscr. Ital. vol. 13.2, pp. 112-13, 396-7.




Corona querc[ea , uti super ianuam domus Imp . Caesar is] Augusti poner[etur, senātus decreuit, quod rem publicam ] p(opulo) R(omano) rest[it]u[it]. The senate decreed that an oak crown should be set above the house of Imperator Caesar Augustus, because he restored the res publica to the Roman people.

Mommsen's restoration was based on Augustus' own statement ( RG 34.1-2, cited above) that ' in my sixth and seventh consulships ... I transferred the res publica from my power to the control of the senate and the Roman people' (in consulatu sexto et septimo . . . rem publicam ex mea potestate in senat[us populique Rom]ani [a]rbitrium transtuli ), and that the civic crown and other honours were conferred for this service (quo pro merito meo). The restoration is necessarily conjectural. However, the arguments brought against it by Judge (n. 113) are not cogent, and, while the remainder of the restoration is still uncertain, the parallel with the new aureus greatly strengthens the case for supposing that the entry included the words [rem publicam ] p R rest[it]u[it'. The words p R restituii occur on the reverse legend of the aureus. If, as was argued above, the formulation used there derives from an honorific decree passed in 28 in response to the first stage of the transfer process, it is plausible to suppose that the senate would have used the same formula the following year, when honouring Octavian for the completion of the process. The object of the verb, of course, would be different from that of the first decree celebrating the return of leges et iura. Since Augustus in the Res Gestae used rem publicam to denote what was transferred as a result of the whole process extending over 28 and 27, it is reasonable to infer that the same term would have been used in the decree passed by the senate on the completion of the transfer process on 13 January 27.

Thus, in the light of the aureus legend, we may reasonably conclude that the Fasti of Praeneste did assert that the oak crown was conferred on Octavian/ Augustus because he 'restored the res publica to the Roman people', and that this formulation was used in the decree in which the senate conferred this honour on 13 January 27, and perhaps also in the speech which he himself had made earlier that day. However, this does not entitle us to speak loosely of Augustus as claiming to have restored the Republic. The formulation used in the Fasti Praenestini must be interpreted in the context of the events of 28-27, as elucidated above. Octavian had, he claimed, 'acquired everything'. In 28-27, he restored to the Roman people what was rightly theirs: their laws and rights, the magistracies, treasury, armies and provinces - in short, the res publica , the common property of the Roman people.

Octavian/ Augustus was awarded the oak, or civic, crown above his door 'for saving citizens' (ob ciuis seruatos ), as the legend which accompanied it




attested.122 It is at first sight puzzling that this honour should have been felt to be an appropriate reward for the political restitution of 28-27. The explanation is to be found in the close connection which was made between his victory in the war against Antony and Cleopatra and the subsequent surrender of his extraordinary powers, a connection which we observed in discussing his earlier honours as saviour and liberator (pp. 1 84-1 85). Octavian had, it was held, saved the res publica and its citizens by repelling the threat of foreign domination. His victory had left him in a position of domination, albeit by general consent. To complete his work, he had to put an end to this domination by restoring the res publica to the Roman people.

The act of restitution carried out on 13 January 27 was not, of course, the end of the story. Augustus himself in the Res Gestae (34.3) conceded that he was thereafter supreme, though claiming that his supremacy was merely in auctoritas. He left unmentioned the division of the provinces and the control of the armies to which it was the key. Nor was this all: throughout Rome, Italy and the provinces, Augustus' control was in fact all-pervasive. Some recognition of all this is implicit in the evasive formula which Augustus adopted in his own reference to the act of restitution. In place of the unambiguous claim that he had restored the res publica to the Roman people, Augustus in the Res Gestae tells us that he transferred the res publica to the arbitrium of the senate and people. If the res publica was in their arbitrium , it was at their disposal, and they were thus free to entrust it, in whole or in part, to Augustus.

As Millar has shown, Augustus' contemporaries were fully aware that he was their ruler.123 What remains uncertain is the extent to which his subsequent position was based on the transactions which followed the act of restitution on 13 January 27. One possibility is that the protests which were made then took no account of the rest of his position in the state and were concerned solely with the provinces and the armies, so that the compromise which was subsequently agreed consisted simply of his retention of a share of the provinces, initially for ten years but extended by periodic renewals until his death. It is, however, perhaps more likely that both the protests and the subsequent agreement had a wider scope. In addition to his share of the provinces he may also have accepted (perhaps, like his provinces, on a temporary basis) 'the overall care and leadership of the public business, as needing some attention'. That at least is what Cassius Dio says.124 In the light of our earlier discussion, his evidence can hardly be accepted without corroboration. However, it is supported by a contemporary witness, the

122 See above, p. 173 and n. 11. 123 'Triumvirate and Principáte', pp. 65-7, and 'State and subject: the impact of monarchy', in F. Millar and E. Segal (eds), Caesar Augustus : Seven Aspects (Oxford, 1984), pp. 37-60. 124 Dio 53.12.1 : TTļV ¡JL€V <¡>pOVT¿8a TT¡V T€ TTpOOTdOlCLV TCÜV KOLVCÜV TTaOdV COS KOL èlTlfJLcÁeíaS TWOS Seoļiev (xìv. Tütjv kolvûîv may translate rei publicae.




geographer Strabo, who prefaces the account of the division of the provinces with which he closes his work with the statement that 'the fatherland' entrusted Augustus with 'the leadership of the empire'.125 These claims should not be construed as attesting a position with formal powers.126 However, either on 13 January 27 or at the following session, Augustus may well have accepted an informal statement of his primacy and oversight of the res publica.121

CONCLUSION

The main contentions of this paper may be summarized as follows. The new aureus is certainly authentic, and its close similarities with the

PAX cistophori show that the two issues were produced together at the same mint in the province of Asia. The reverse of the aureus shows, both in image and words, Octavian restoring their laws and rights to the Roman people, and the reference on the obverse to his sixth consulship (28 bc) makes it clear that this action formed part of the political settlement which he carried out in 28-27. The title liber tatis populi Romani uindex accorded to Octavian on the PAX cistophori probably alludes to this restoration of the people's laws and rights and may have been conferred on him by the senate in a decree of 28 prompted by that action. The reverse legend of the aureus may also derive from that decree, and it is possible that the reverse type was based on a statue for whose erection the decree provided. Whether or not this hypothesis is correct, both the aureus and the cistophori may be taken as sound contemporary evidence for the political settlement and the manner in which it was presented to the Roman public.

We know from other sources that Octavian claimed to have observed the laws during his sixth consulship and that at some point in the year he proclaimed the annulment of those of his past ordinances which were illegal and unjust. These steps must have constituted at least part of what was implied by the restoration of laws and rights commemorated on the aureus. However, the reference probably also extended to other matters, such as the restoration of the people's right of freely electing the magistrates.

Our fullest source on the political settlement, Cassius Dio, represents it as a single comprehensive resignation of power, made and immediately revoked in 27. The contradiction between this account and Augustus' statement of RG 34.1 that his transfer of the res publica took place 'in my sixth and seventh consulships' has been generally disregarded. The new evidence of the aureus has revealed that Dio, for his own purposes, misrepresented as a

125 Strabo 17.3.25 (840): 17 rrarpis èrrérpeifiev avrà) rrjv rrpoaraaíav rrjs r¡y e ¡xov ¿as. 126 So A. von Premerstein, Vom Werden und Wesen des Prinzipats (Munich, 1937), pp. 117-33. 127 Liebeschuetz, 'The settlement of 27 bc' (n. 71); Rich, Cassius Dio (n. 11), pp. 139-40.




single act what was in fact a staged process, most of which probably took place not in 27, but in 28. This enables us to make better sense of the settlement and to understand more clearly how it served to legitimate and ensure public approval for Augustus' regime.

The aureus legend also makes it more likely that Mommsen was correct to restore the words [rem publicam ] p R rest[it]u[it] in the lacunose entry for 13 January in the Fasti of Praeneste. However, this does not entitle us to assert that Augustus restored, or claimed to have restored the Republic.

KEY TO PLATES 20-21

1. The new aureus. 2. Denarius, c. 29/28 bc: BMC 637 (RIC 270). 3. Aureus, 27 bc: BMC 657 (RIC 277). 4. Cistophorus, 28 bc: Sutherland, Cistophori (n. 13), no. 40 (RIC 416= RPC

2203). 5. Cistophorus of Antony, c. 39 bc: BMCRR East 134 (RPC 2201). 6. Cistophorus of Antony, c.39 bc: BMCRR East 135 (RPC 2202). 7. Denarius of C. Marius, 13 bc: BMC 107 (RIC 400). 8. Denarius of C. Sulpicius Platorinus, 13 bc: BMC 116 (RIC 407). 9. Detail of praetorian grave monument (Schäfer, Imperii Insignia (n. 23), no. 2).

Photograph courtesy of the Museo Nazionale Romano. 10. Boscoreale cup: P. Héron de Villefosse, 'Le trésor de Boscoreale', Monuments

Eugène Piot 5 (1899), pl. XXXI. 11. Aureus of Cossus Cornelius Lentulus, probably 12 bc: Vermeule, 'Un aureo

augusteo' (n. 118), fig. 2 (RIC 413).



PLATE 20

RICH AND WILLIAMS, AUREUS OF OCTAVIAN (1)



PLATE 21

RICH AND WILLIAMS, AUREUS OF OCTAVIAN (2)



Leges et Ivra P. R. Restitvit. A New Aureus of Octavian and the Settlement of 28-27 BC_J.W. Rich and J.H. C. Williams (The Numismatic Chronicle, Vol. 159, 1999).pdf

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new aureus of octavian

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